


These Things You Keep

by SilverMiko



Series: Sight Unseen [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Loss, Romance, Series 4 Compliant, Sherlolly - Freeform, TST compliant, everything hurts and im dYING, implied sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-01-22 20:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12490148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMiko/pseuds/SilverMiko
Summary: He' s survived his latest brush with death, literally gotten away with murder and Sherlock feels on top of the world. He's got the Game, solving crime with the Watsons and a new development has arisen in working closer with Molly on her latest academic paper. It's all going well, too well, until it all falls apart. S4/"The Six Thatchers" complaint.





	1. These Things You Keep, You Better Throw Them Away

**Author's Note:**

> This took a good while, but hope it was worth the wait! I'm sorry in advance for any feels.

One would have thought a bit of murder (no matter how justified), a near brush with an assured death sentence, and a drug overdose would maybe, just maybe, knock Sherlock Holmes down a peg or two upon his return from a brief, four minute exile.

_ One would have been totally and utterly wrong _ , Mary thought, groaning as she gingerly sat herself into John’s chair at Baker Street. She felt ready to burst, a thousand months pregnant, and quite frankly not in the mood for Sherlock at his most self-absorbed. Oh, she still loved him dearly as a good friend and understood more than anyone how different he was from most people...but if he didn’t stop prancing around his flat spewing out another frenetically paced monologue about being bored and running into total dead ends with the Moriarty broadcast she was almost tempted to put another bullet into him. Not that she would, of course, not again. Never again.

“Mary, are you paying attention?” she heard him call out as he snapped to a standstill.

“What? Yes. Bored, cases under a six, no good Lestrade, blah blah blah.”

“John always listens…” Sherlock whined and at that Mary rolled her eyes.

“Well too bad, this is the Watson you have for now, well, Watson and half,” she said with a smile, patting her expanded belly.

“You know Wilhelmina is a perfectly goo…”

“No, Sherlock! We’re not naming our daughter after you and that is final. Make one of your own if you want a namesake so badly.”

She watched his face twitch and work up at the suggestion and that alone was worth the price of a bored, listless Holmes. But speaking of his love life or lack thereof...

“If you’re so bored maybe you can do me a favor. You see it’s Molly…”

“What? What about Molly? Is she okay?”

Mary smirked at that. Sherlock might have John well and fooled, hell the man had his own self most of the time well good and fooled, but Mary knew when he was fibbing. 

“She’s fine, well, sort of. Mike apparently mentioned something last time he bumped into John that Molly was being a bit on edge these days. I tried texting her but she was oddly curt in reply. Anyway, if you could just maybe pop around and check on her sometime? You’d probably have more luck than me right now.”

“Hmm, doubtful,” he replied as he spun around and paced more, which made him conveniently face away from her. 

“Are you two on the outs again? I thought maybe she’s forgiven you by now for Christmas.”

“It’s...complicated.”

“Well not very complicated that you neglected to tell her goodbye in person. I mean, a letter, really?”

“She told you?” he asked as he suddenly turned and faced her again, marching over to his chair across from her and sitting down haphazardly. 

“Of course, we’re mates after all and even though she told me it was fine I really think you ought have done better all things considered and after all she’s done for you. But I supposed it would have been hard.”

“Well considering the red tape and logistics to even have you and John see me off at the airstrip…”

“No, I meant it would have been hard for you. Remember, I’m not John. I can tell about these things.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” he denied, looking away from her again.

“Don’t I?”

She’d been content to say nothing for the past few months, having her own personal life to deal with after her past had been revealed, but seeing both of them muck about in trying not to actually deal with the thing between them was difficult to watch. Sometimes she wondered who was more stubborn about it, Sherlock or Molly. It was a toss up on any given day. When she’d gently prodded at Molly about Christmas and that she hadn’t clearly seen Sherlock in weeks, her normally bubbly friend clammed right up and desperately tried to change the subject to anything but their mutual friend. And Sherlock? Oh, he did his best to not mention Molly Hooper’s name and act all cool and above it all as usual, but the moment someone else brought her up it was like watching the ears perk up on a dog and his focus pivoted. 

But would they actually talk and work it out like adults? Nope! Well, hopefully they got it together at some point before the baby was born. Especially since they were the prime candidates for godparents. 

“Mary I don’t have time for this, can we please get back to work?”

Well, at least she was getting wonderful training with the adult-sized child that was Sherlock Holmes.

“Alright, tell me again what you’re latest Moriarty theory is?”

 

***

 

After Mary had left Baker Street, Sherlock felt exhausted. Maybe it was the boredom, the energy he tried to work out with pacing around and using his friend as a sounding board, and maybe it was a bit of wariness at Mary’s emotional prodding, but he had stretched out on his sofa to think and promptly fell asleep.

And Sherlock dreamed. Of the Victorian times again, of gaslight and smoke. A different him and always, always her. That Molly Hooper, bold and brave. Sometimes John and Mary were there too, sometimes his mind kept apace with the fictional bet he’d had with that Mycroft. Everyone flitted about like players on a stage, but she was always there. She’d been so taciturn in the first dream, and sometimes she still was but she was also at times soft, sometimes this Molly smiled at him. Sometimes his other self smiled back, despite the colder nature his Victorian dream self seemed to possess. Sometimes, there was more than smiles. Before his latest set of dreams could unfurl more he found himself pulled out of his dream world and back firmly into the present, where honking horns filled the streets instead of the sound of hooves. The one constant between reality and dreams stood over him by the sofa, looking rather amused. Molly smiled down to him a bit  _ too _ sweetly. 

She was in jeans and sweatshirt, her messenger bag slung over her shoulders and hair in that fishtail braid style she fancied lately with the hair parted the way he liked. It really had suited her that way.

“Christ, Sherlock, I know John had said you’d really been out of it lately with the whole Victorian dream business, but I didn’t know you were still keeping it up.”

He pursed his lips, feeling color rise to his cheeks.

“Was I, er, talking in my sleep?”

“A little bit, mostly nonsense. Was the crossplay murdery version of me with you again?”

She asked it with such a smug grin on her face that he regretted the day he ever gave John Watson the full details to post on his blog as some special Christmas edition. But it had been basic blackmail, in exchange for not telling Molly about his latest drug relapse while in solitary and on the plane, he had begrudgingly agreed to allow ‘The Abominable Bride’ to be published. As far as Molly was concerned, his preoccupation with the bygone era and Ricoletti case was just a variant of his Mind Palace at play and if she suspected otherwise she wasn’t letting on. She didn’t need to know the particulars on how the narrative had continued to unfold in his head, where Hooper’s story had gone and his and how it had intertwined. There was nothing Freudian about it, the implications were as clear as anvils dropping.  He knew what his dream was getting at, it was whether he listened that remained to be unseen. But right now for the first time in a long while he and Molly were in the same space, alone, and she seemed in good spirits and not, in fact, annoyed at him. 

“I assume you’re here for more than a bit of bater at my expense. What do you need, Molly?”

“You.”

That was, in the scheme of answers, not exactly what he was expecting to hear and quite a loaded one. When his confusion was surely clear on his face, he saw the color rise on her cheeks and she waved a hand quickly and dismissively.

“I mean, I need your help and it’s something that can put that giant brain of yours to good use.”

“And that is?” he asked as he sat up and felt the ridiculous urge to cover himself more with his dressing gown. It was just Molly! But it was never a ‘just’ sort of thing, was it? 

“The Science in Deduction,” she said, smiling wider.

“My blog?” 

“No, my next paper! It’s time I start cashing in some of the favors I’ve racked up in helping you all these years and our work together has been really interesting and it’s definitely a different angle of approach for a topic.”

He looked her over, the sweet-as-marshmallow smile, the desperate gleam in her eye. In four seconds he had his deductions in order. 

“It’s not just about a paper, you’re serious about Consultancy. Trying to boost your profile? Something exciting to set you apart.”

“It’s not a bad plan, though, but it does mean I need your help writing it. I need your deductive insights coupled with my medical knowledge or else it doesn’t work. I might know your methods pretty well but I mean, it’s not like you have anything else going on right now, right?”

“Of course I do! Crimes to be solved, there’s still the pesky Moriarty broadcast and much to ponder!”

“Then why did you practically beg Mary and John to play Cluedo last night? Also, she told me to tell you to ‘stop fibbing’ and be of some use.”

“Yes well apparently she’s been worried about you.”

Molly sighed, shrugging her bag off her shoulders.

“ I know, I think I was bit snippy in text the other day, I’ve just been busy that’s all trying to outline the topic and with work.”

“And you have fed your cat today, right?”

“Of course I’ve fed Tob...okay I’m fairly sure I did anyway! Besides, the big lump could stand to lose a pound or two.”

“Or six.”

“How is my cat’s weight at all a thing worthwhile for you to monitor?”

“Around the time he decided to use me as a spare cat bed when I come by.”

“Well, he’s down two pounds since. I guess it’s been a while and all,” she said, looking away. 

So, they really weren’t going to talk about it; Halloween, Christmas, any of it. Fine then, if that was her prerogative, but it was a funny thing how it made something in him ache. Maybe he just needed more biscuits. Ginger nuts solved everything. 

“If I help you, what does this entail? You need access to old case files? Most of it is on John’s blog, a version of it all anyway.”

“You think I haven’t already gone through it?”

“Right, forgot who I’m talking to, but I really hope this doesn’t mean you’re going to cover everything in sticky notes again.”

“Again? When did I do that?”

“They were all over your flat at uni when we did our final paper. Even in the toilet. You had a problem, Molly, and the first step is admitting it.”

“Well why have sticky notes when you have a photographic memory? You’ll have to do then, when you aren’t handling half the typing.”

“Come again?”

“I typed almost our entire final myself. You owe me for that too. And I know you’re trying to find more cases and flinging yourself deep into work but well, you can help in between cases or just text away on your mobile while I type. I’m sure you of all people can multitask.”

He looked at her again, and behind the easy humor she was still tense. He wondered if not for her need for his ‘giant brain’ would she have even stopped by? While he tried his best to keep up with cases, devote his time to the Game, something had been missing the past few weeks and it was her. He had missed her and he was still trying to figure out what to do with that feeling. Absence wasn’t going to give him the data, so perhaps the answer was prolonged exposure. Maybe spending more time with her again, when he knew she’d be at her tensest, bossiest, most control-freak self would put everything back into sorts where they were simply friends and colleagues who were both more or less married to their work in varying degrees. Maybe he really was an idiot for thinking that would be the case. 

Still, she was right about one thing, he owed her. He owed her so much it would take at least two more lifetimes alone to pay her back. He hadn’t done a great job so far at it in his current ‘second’ one. 

“All right, I’ll help.”

“That was...easy,” she said, mildly surprised.

“Molly, you’re my friend, we’re friends, of course I’ll help you. You’ve saved my life three times now.”

“Not sure Mind Palace Me counts.”

“It does count. You count.”

She pressed her lips together, and he could tell she was thinking his words over, probably too hard, too deeply, and probably not in the wrong way either but it wasn’t the time for that. It never seemed to be the right now.

“So where do we begin then?” he asked, as he put back on the mask of moderate interest with edge of cool distance.

He watched as her lips tugged to a corner in thought, before she tilted her head in a certain way he knew meant she had come to her conclusion.

“We’ll start with the riding crop.”

There was nothing provocative in the way she said the words, but something about them set his temperature up a fraction, his mind oddly wandering to a certain different context. 

_ I bet she could make you beg, twice, _ ” the Mind Palace version of Irene commented, as if she were standing in the room behind them wearing, thankfully, his coat this time. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing the vision of her away. He had to stop letting his thoughts go down that road. They’d slept together. It had happened. Twice. And he knew he should feel they shouldn’t have, that he should have never instigated it the second time, he should just really delete it but ah, that was the rub wasn’t it? He couldn’t even if he wanted to try. He wasn’t entirely sure these days he would want to, and it mildly terrified him. This was  _ exactly _ why he didn’t do sentiment or emotions and yet, as always without her actively even trying hard, Molly Hooper was one of the exceptions. 

 

As the next two weeks passed, he wondered if he would regret his decision to help, because somehow he had forgotten the exact feeling of dealing with Molly on a mission when it was happening in the moment and not some distant youthful memory. But this is what he wanted right? Seeing her at her worst? He was starting to regret that line of thinking when he saw her yet again near snapping a pencil in half at his desk as she frowned at the laptop before her.

“Why the everloving FUCK are tenses so hard? Why do scientists even need to know proper grammar it’s all bollocks anyway.”

He had also forgotten how foul her mouth got when she well and truly stressed out. Between working on the paper and her taking more double shifts at Bart’s three days a week, it was he ironically worrying a bit about her not getting enough sleep or eating when usually the roles were reversed. She hadn’t seemed to notice when Mrs. Hudson brought sandwiches to go along with biscuits for their tea suddenly, or when they were having an awful lot of takeaway from Angelo’s. He remembered the time she tried to stop eating carbs a few years back, it was one of the few things he actively considered actually deleting about her because he’d gone up against serial killers less frightening than Molly Hooper running low on glucose. It wasn’t that much effort to do these little things for her either, when he wasn’t busy glued to his phone over cases or running dogs across London, or well, waiting for dogs to run. It seemed all pets named Toby rather loved him but were also wholefully uncooperative. 

Luckily, they had somewhere else to be that afternoon and the rest of the pencils at Baker Street were safe or the moment.

“Don’t we have a thing? Something with John and Mary?” he asked, sitting in his chair and firing out another text as he heard her pounding at the keyboard loudly. It was no wonder her work computer keyboard was wearing down on some buttons, for someone with one of the steadiest hands with a scalpel she was truly artless with keys. She’d curled her hair a bit, something she only did for special occasions. She looked nice, meaning she also remembered where they were supposed to be.

“Baby shower.”

“Isn’t a bit late for that? Mary’s ready to pop any week now.”

“Well, she had a lot going on in the third trimester and it didn’t seem like a good time.”

Ah yes. Her temporary estrangement from John, Magnussen and all that was probably not the time for parties.

“Still don’t know why I’m invited. Aren’t these things usual ladies only?”

“Usually but Mary thinks of you like a best friend and wanted you there.”

“Best friends, I seem to collect those a lot these days,” he remarked, still surprised by it. He knew how he was, and he truly had never expected many friends in his life, let alone a best friend and now it seemed he had two. And Molly, she was his friend too in a different way.

“Well, I think she’s angling for you to be godfather.” 

He briefly lifted his head from his phone.

“Me?!”

“Yes you!.”

“What would I even..do?”

“I don’t know, be there for her, slip her ten quid on birthdays, whatever godparents do. Oh and Janine’s going to be there. I hope that’s not a problem?”

He shrugged, “She’s a big girl and I think she’s gotten over it but I’m sure she’ll get another revenge top off at the party.”

“No, I meant a problem for you.”

“Me? I’m perfectly fine, it wasn’t a real relationship.”

“But you did like her, maybe even as a friend. You weren’t using her or faking it at the wedding. I think you genuinely liked her and I think you do know you really bollocked things up there.”

He sighed. She was, of course, right. 

“Maybe I should apologize again, discreetly.”

“That’d be a good idea, and don’t worry I won’t tell anyone about it. Got to protect your reputation.” 

She meant it as a joke, but it prodded something in him to the forefront he so rarely liked to express.

“Thank you, Molly. I mean it. Despite popular belief it’s hard always being so…” 

“Flashy smartass with the coat and cheekbones?”

He sighed again. He was trying to have a moment here.

“I don’t need to be like that all the time with you. Even a computer needs to shut down for a while to operate well.”

“You’re not a computer, Sherlock,” she said softly, her gaze diverted from the screen as her head turned to look at him. “And besides, it’s our little secret in a way. Has been for years. I’m really glad you feel comfortable enough with me to relax. That you trust me like that.”

“I always trust you,” he murmured, and their gazes locked for a long moment and he didn’t need to even feel her wrist to know her heartbeat was likely elevated. He could certainly feel it in his own veins. But the spell couldn’t last for long, and of course, he broke it.

“So then, what time are we supposed to be there?” he asked as he looked away back to his phone.

“Ummm...half noon.”

“Molly, it’s fifteen past.”

He heard her stop typing, her cry of ‘shit!’ and soon she was on her feet ushering him up from his chair and into his coat and out the door.

“Alright, use whatever magic it is you have to get a taxi and we might only be a little late.”

“According to traffic conditions a little is being rather optimistic....”

He looked down at her next to him, and she was definitely giving him A Look.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and raised an arm, hailing down a taxi and as he took advantage of the commute to fire off more texts from his mobile, Molly busied herself calling Mary.

“Hey there, Sherlock and I are on our way but might be a bit late….No, my fault this time actually, got lost in working, sorry….My paper? Fine, it’s coming along fine and yes, Sherlock is actually being helpful most of the time.”

At this, he shot her his own ‘look’ and she had the gall shrug.

“We’re coming from Baker Street, so thirty minutes maybe?...No, I still live at my flat thank you very much….Mary it’s not...I’m not...bye, Mary, we’ll see you when we get there!” Molly said, voice heighted and way too artificially sweet at the end. “Oh my God, she’s relentless,” Molly murmured, pocketing her mobile.

“Well at least it’s not just me that’s on the end of her needling speculation.”

She turned to glance at him, eyebrow raised.

“You haven’t...I mean you didn’t say anything to her and John, right?”

He put his phone down for a moment, returning her gaze.

“About?”

“You know what.”

To her credit, she kept her gaze locked on his for once and didn’t shy away. And to his credit, he didn’t look away either.

“No, I haven’t. I thought we weren’t...talking about it.”

“We aren’t. I wasn’t really, I just don’t know where Mary is getting this from, is all.”

“And that is?”

She opened her mouth and closed it, looking rather like a fish, an adorably flustered fish. And for some reason he rather enjoyed having her on the spot. 

“That we...that you and I...you know?”

“That we?”

“Are you seriously wanting me to spell it out? Aren’t you a deductive genius for God’s sake?”

Instead of replying, he picked his mobile back up and smirked. 

“Wait are you..? Oh my God, you’re teasing me! You absolute sodding oat!” she yelled, whacking him lightly on the arm. But he knew from her smile and the giggle in her voice that she wasn’t mad. This was good. This was familiar. This was something between them he’d been missing for weeks.

“And people say I don’t have a sense of humor,” he murmured with a grin.

“Well, not all the time anyway.”

“Ouch, Hooper, you wound me.”

“I’m still considering it, thank you very much.”

“Hardly.”

“And why is that?” she asked, giving him a side eyed glance.

“Because you need my big brain, I’m useful to you alive.”

“Oh well, there is that then,” she said with a laugh, “But I suppose I was wrong about one thing. I think I once told you you weren’t a very good flirt. When you aren’t really trying too hard or after something, you’re not half bad at it.”

He glanced at her, confused and now feeling a bit like the awkward one.

“Thank you?” 

“There may be hope for you yet, Holmes,” she teased, patting one of his hands with hers.

“Doubtful,” he replied, continuing to text with one hand while hers still rested on the one between them in the back of the taxi. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed she was still holding his hand as she looked out the window, but he wasn’t exactly moving away either. 

“Sherlock,” she began, her voice sounding wistful.

“Yes?” he asked looking at her, wondering if perhaps they were about to have another conversation bordering on the edge of heartfelt.

“Think they’ll have champagne? Wouldn’t mind a few celebratory drinkies.”

He blinked at her, shook his head a bit and went to check his email.

 

 ***

 

There were several occasions Molly had witnessed firsthand where Sherlock was completely out of his depth. A party back in uni, when she’d mentioned she and Tom were having quite a lot of sex, and now surrounded by women who had pinned giant fake diaper pins on him as part of a party game. And he, bless him, played along for Mary’s sake which delighted her to no end by how hard she laughed at it.

It was nice, the light snacks lovely and there was champagne and at other time this would have been fun if not for the sequence of murder scenarios from years ago running through Molly’s head.

“Oi, what if we added the Blind Baker bits?” she asked, whispering to Sherlock. 

“No, not really anyone’s favorite. Even John whined traffic was low on that one. And why are we whispering?”

“We’re in polite company and it’s not nice to talk murder in front of the normals,” she replied with a slight huff.

“And what are you two conspiring over?” Mary asked, trying for all appearances to not hover but was totally hovering.

“Er, Chinese. Maybe for takeaway later. Still work to be done and all,” Molly fibbed, rather terribly. She knew Mary wasn’t buying it but at least the other woman humored her.

“Go for French. Much more romantic.”

“That’s definitely not on the menu, Mary,” Sherlock replied flatly as he discreetly tried to remove the plastic pins from his person.

“Never say never, Sherlock,” she said with a wink, then went back to her guests.

“You know, I think rather than me it’s Mary doodling our names on notebooks with a heart around it.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“It’s a thing girls do when they’re young and fancy someone.”

“But you never did that in uni.”

“What scribble ‘Mrs. Molly Holmes’ all over? I didn’t fancy you then.”

Ooh, but there was another fib and she knew it. You didn’t repeated kiss a man you didn’t fancy, let alone stay friends with someone like Sherlock Holmes for so long if you didn’t have feelings.

“Molly, lying to me really isn’t your area.”

“Isn’t it, though?” she mumbled, and if he heard her he didn’t give on. She watched as the pretty brunette they’d manage to directly avoid walked over to them with a grin.

“Ta, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes. Always wondered what was going on with you two and glad to see you got it together. You better treat this one right, Sherly,” Janine teased, plopping down next to them on the sofa.

“We aren’t...it’s not like that!” Molly adamantly stated, waving her hands in denial.

“Relax, I’m just teasing. I’d say Sherl more than deserves it,” she laughed, reaching across Molly to give Sherlock a play punch on the arm.

“Still looking to top off then?” 

“Actually I need your advice. It’s about bees.”

“Bees?” Molly asked, sipping at her flute of champagne she’d been neglecting.

“Yep, tons of them just floating about my garden. Driving me nuts really. I remembered Sherlock here has a thing for them and he may as well be useful to me.”

“I am sitting right here,” he grumbled.

“Thanks for the memo Captain Obvious.”

Molly, starting to feel a bit like an awkward third wheel, stood and excused herself.

“You two catch up, I’m going to see if Mary needs help.”

Janine nodded and Sherlock seemed to watch her go for a long moment, probably upset to be left trapped with his ex-girlfriend. Well, served him right! She walked into the attached kitchen around the corner and found Mary casually chatting with one of neighborhood moms as they plated more mini savory pies. 

“Hey, need any help?”

“Sure, glad to see you’re done talking death shop with Sherlock for five minutes.”

The neighbor mom, Janet, choked for a moment on her tea.

“Pardon?”

“Oh sorry, Molly here is a pathologist and working on a medical study with Sherlock’s help. Pathology means criminology, you know crimes, murder and all that to make it real sexy,” Mary said glibly while her neighbor paled more.

“Really, it’s quite tame and dry, I promise! Anyway no more of that right now, not really suited for a baby shower.”

“Neither is your bloke, either, Molly, but he seems a good sport,” Janet replied, still looking a bit wary.

“Sherlock? He’s not my…”

“He is being a good sport! Molly always brings out the best him, isn’t that right?”

If looks could kill, Molly would be the assassin in the room for once. Mary picked up on it, foregoing her teasing as she grabbed the tray of pies.

“Can you pop a few more cookies in the oven? Dough’s in the fridge.”

“Sure thing!” Molly chirped.

“Best hurry up dear, that Janine is sitting awfully close to your husband,” Janet supplied in a poor attempt to be helpful as she followed Mary out of the kitchen.

“He’s not my...oh sod it,” Molly finished lamely to absolutely no one in the room.

Why in the name of holy Pret a Manger did everyone think they were a couple? Funny how once that would have thrilled her, but now it just muddled the waters even further.

 

***

 

“She is lovely you know, Molly is.”

Why Janine was stating an objectively obvious fact, he didn’t know, nor why she seemed so smug about it.

“Yes, and?” 

Surely there was a point in there somewhere.

“I’m just saying, you could do worse, although don’t know what she sees in you. You definitely aren’t pulling any routines with her, that’s for sure, but she still likes you. You’ve found yourself a rare woman, Sherl. Don’t be daft about it.”

Well, that wasn’t what he expected from his sort-of ex. Had Mary said something? It escaped him why people lately seemed to think he and Molly were in some kind of relationship of a romantic nature. Sure, they were close. Sure, they had kissed. Shared a bed. Shared many secrets and a history. Shared some fond sentiment for each other. Oh, and shagged. But it was definitely  _ not _ the sort of thing people kept implying. Then again, neither he or Molly really knew what it was or bothered to define it.

“She and I aren’t…”

“Aren’t you?” Janine asked, eyebrow raised.

He sighed. He forgot how sharp Janine was in her own way, and maybe it was the residual guilt for stringing her along, maybe it him actually developing as a person, but he decided it wouldn’t to lie to her. 

“It’s complicated,” he replied, a rare honest answer towards the subject of Molly Hooper.

“Can’t get your overfluffed head out of your arse then?”

“It’s not really a problem with me, per se.”

“Oooooh, she’s the one playing coy. Can you really blame her, Sherl? You aren’t exactly the safest bet for a girl.”

“Yes, but it’s  _ me _ and she’s known me for pretty much our entire adult lives.”

“Well bless her then, the woman is a saint. But I do mean it, teasing aside, can you blame her for being a bit gunshy?”

He looked down at his hands, knowing with a sinking feeling in his stomach that her words rang true.

“No, I can’t.”

“Seems you’re at an impasse then. But hey, at least she ditched that dim doppleganger of yours, Tim? Tam?”

“Tom,” Sherlock replied quickly, trying to not sound disdainful.

“Ah yea, Tom. Look at it this way, you’re perpetually single, she’s single, she tolerates you clearly more than most, and you clearly adore her and don’t even make that face Sherlock Holmes you absolutely do.”

He frowned at her, really really hating this entire conversation. He didn’t like exposing his feelings, exposing himself like this. It only ever felt comfortable with one person, and she was in the other room.

“Any advice then oh wise one?” he asked, sarcastically.

“You’re the genius, deduct it yourself.”

He hated that answer, really hated it. If he could figure it out alone he bloody would have!

“Oh and Sherl, I did mean it about the bees, seriously, please tell me how to get those fuzzy stingers on wings out of my hair.”

As he gave Janine his best practical advice he made a mental note to mention to Molly later, the case with bee venom as the murder weapon. Now that was definitely journal-worthy.

***

  
  


Sometimes they worked in her flat at the kitchen, sometimes they worked at his flat. Sometimes it was so late he’d kip in her bed, not unusual, but what changed was when she started to kip in his bed at Baker Street. Sharing a bed had always been at her flat, not his. And it was purely out of need for sleep but Molly was starting to get really used to falling asleep next to him and waking up to him as he puttered in the kitchen, already working and an extra mug of coffee was always ready for her.  It was nice, more than nice, and if she an an iota or more bandwidth for anything not work-related she might have pondered it more but Molly was anything if not dedicated and so she observed those things weren’t happening but filed them away in a mental drawer for later examination. 

It really was a good thing he found himself in a rare lull where cases were concerned, something she knew probably annoyed him but it was working to her advantage. Although he didn’t seem annoyed about it anymore, and every now and then when something did come through it was a quick text or an email fired off and then he was back to helping her. Sometimes though, he had to disappear for a week and she tried to focus on her parts of the writing. Sometimes when she was exhausted after a double shift and wanting nothing more than a shower and to sink into her bed for a month, he was at her home desk typing away and insisting she sleep because she was too cranky to function when tired. She’d shoot him a look, but of course he was right.

It was a loose sort of pattern they’d fallen into, she’d go to work, he’d work on what cases came his way, they’d meet up afterwards at whatever hours were convenient or inconvenient but they met up anyway, and “home” began to stretch across town and two flats into a blur. So when she started keeping the pajamas and spare clothes at Baker Street, he clearly thought nothing of it. Just like she didn’t mind making more space in her closet for his woefully overpriced suits and dress shirts. 

They’d always carved out a small space in each other’s homes and lives over the years, and this seemed like a progression that just made sense given the circumstances. Who cared if their friends were reading more into it than necessary?

So when they’d gotten into an argument about a case he wanted to put in the paper and she didn’t and it escalated into a full blown shouting match, it was not surprised they’d both joined forces to snap at John when he joked about them ‘having a domestic’. When Greg had mentioned a case but asked if Sherlock needed to clear with Molly first, well, Greg learned all about how the blonde solicitor he’d been seeing was probably not the right woman for him. Mary, thankfully, had let up on them, but then she was eight months pregnant and had her own things to finally worry over.

So when the ocasional remark came there way, Sherlock and Molly did what they did best: deflect and brush it off. 

They were accomplishing something awesome, she could feel it, and everything else could go hang.

For Sherlock, he had begun to realize it wasn’t not so much a chore to help Molly with her work, he was enjoying his time with her, enjoying the academic debate and someone who actually understand the glee on a well thought out murder. But it also almost felt like it edged on the line of the very thing he’d always claimed wasn’t his area, that everyone always assumed, himself included, was not an easy thing for cold logical him. Still, he was finding it startling easy to be...whatever it was...around and with Molly. But his logical side was still ever present, trying to clamp those feelings down, and he told himself it wasn’t worth thinking about.

Especially when he could practically hear her gnashing her teeth as she paced around his sitting room wearing a hole in the floorboards trying to work out an order of sequence that made sense for what they were writing out. He knew she always liked to write everything out in separate parts to sequence together later, but it was the sequencing part that always got her worked up too. Many people thought him a pedantic perfectionist but he had nothing, absolutely nothing, on Molly Hooper when she deep in her element.

Unfortunately, it meant she was still completely stressed out and knew she needed some outlet before her head figuratively and possibly literally exploded. She was snapping at everyone that week, Mary, John, Mrs. Hudson, even Mike. Mike! A marshmallow good guy if ever there was one! He, of course, was so used to it at that point that he failed to notice how relentless she was being until Mary snapped back at her one afternoon at Baker Street.

Molly had stormed into the bathroom, John looked on in mute horror, and Sherlock merely plucked at his violin while sitting in his chair as if nothing out of sorts had happened. Until Mary wheeled on him, marched over, grabbed the violin out of his hand and grabbed him by the lapels of his dressing gown.

“I don’t know how and I don’t know what strings you need to pull but for the love of God, please get that woman to calm her uppity tits!”

“Don’t be absurd, Mary, breasts can’t be uppity.”

“I. Mean. It. Sherlock,” Mary gritted out, face serious, “I love Molly but she wearing my last nerve. How can you of all people stand it?”

“Because she was way worse in uni. Trust me. This is nothing.”

“Worse? There was a worse?” Mary stepped back, throwing her hands in the air. “That’s it, we’re leaving. You two weirdos definitely deserve each other. Call me when our nice Molly is back, will you? I have to ask her something.”

Sherlock waved them off, accepting a clap on a shoulder and “good luck, mate” from John. Fair enough, maybe something ought to be done, especially when Molly stomped out of the bathroom now dressed in track shorts, an old worn tee, and her glasses. She’d let her hair out of its ponytail and tugged her fingers through it, brushing it out.

“They’ve gone? Honestly, what the hell is Mary’s problem today? That was totally uncalled for.”

“Molly, you called her a daft orca. I think it was warranted.”

“Well she should have minded her own bloody business!” Molly huffed, plopping down on the sofa in a huff. He watched her stew and weighed his option.

Drugs were out, surely. Not even “herbal soothers” would be her thing. Yoga, maybe? But then she had always hated it and called it an expensive way to pass gas. It was when all other options were ruled out that later, over pizza on the sofa and talk of poison, he just blurted out the last suggestion anyone would ever think, one that had even taken him by surprise. 

“Do you want to have sex?”

She blinked, pizza halfway to her lips.

“Is this a trick question?”

“You’re tense and stressed, and the hormones released during satisfactory relations aren’t that far off from the chemical stimulants in drugs that make a high feel good, and sex is a bit more legal and less likely to kill you and we’ve already….”

“So you’re suggesting recreational shagging as opposed to something truly stupid like yoga?”

“Yes. Besides we both know you hate overpriced stretching.”

“Have you run out of nicotine patches?” she asked, arching an eyebrow and nibbling at her slice of pizza.

He almost tried looking indignant, but dammit if she wasn’t partially right.

“Alright, fine, there hasn’t been anything truly interesting case-wise and I need some sort of high that doesn’t involve me on the receiving end of John’s wrath or yours, and you need the stress relief and distraction. Besides, it would not be our first encounter, we know we’re sexually compatible and have known each other a long time. It makes sense.”

“So you’d be a stand-in for yoga, and I’d be a stand-in for drugs? How romantic.”

“Molly, it has nothing to do with romance,” he said with a frown, wishing he’d never said anything, unwilling to examine his suggestion coming from any emotional motivations. It was a practical solution, completely nothing sentimental about it all!

“It was a joke, Sherlock. Trust me, I don’t expect this offer means we’re engaged or anything.”

There was color in her cheeks and the humor didn’t quite meet her eyes. He’d be stupid not to see part of her was disappointed but she covered it up as she did best, with a grin as she leaned a bit closer to him.

“Purely beneficial, then?”

“Yes, no need to complicate the occasional act aimed towards mutual satisfaction. You’re busy, I’m busy, it’s a logical solution to solve both our problems without high expectations,” he replied, also leaning in as if they were conspiring in secret. 

“Mutual satisfaction? You seem fairly confident of your skills,” she teased, her nose brushing his now as her warm, brown eyes stared into his.

“You haven’t complained yet,” he murmured, lips so close they brushed against her.

“Well it was always so quick....”

“Molllllyyy,” he purred, in that deep reprimanding tone, and that absolutely did it for her as she crushed her lips against his. 

They fucked on his couch, and it was longer this time and she definitely, absolutely must have felt the tension leave her body afterwards. He was, if anything, quite thorough. And curious. Two things that had been absolutely beneficial for her, and him. As she stretched out, utterly satisfied and looking boneless, she decided to go to bed except he didn’t join her. The excuse was that he felt inspired and was going to work more. She pretended to believe him. 

A few days later, Sherlock found himself with quite a case of rug burn from Molly riding him on her sitting room floor. And when he spent the night, she hadn’t come to bed and gave the same echo of an excuse he’d given her. They didn’t kip in bed together anymore. Sometimes she’d take his bed while he claimed to work all night, and he stopped spending the night at hers. Sharing bed was one thing, shagging was another; the two combined was too much like something neither were particularly ready to consider. And despite what he assumed was both of them mentally reassuring themselves it was meaningless and just stress relief, it didn’t stop how apparently, as Mary had put it in a text,  ‘#married’ they were starting to appear to others.

Apparently during the Christening they had appeared more than just chummy when acting as godparents. It was, as Mary put it, the way they’d stood close to each other, the way they’d quietly bantered about Rosie’s name and definitely the way Molly scolded him over his texting with a shoulder bump but had remained leaning into her shoulder into his side. He of course, said there was nothing to it. It wasn’t like Mary had caught when Molly was flirting with him later on at the restaurant where the party was.

She’d cornered him about his statement of deleting all texts that started with ‘hi’, the one that had her remarking she had no idea why people thought he was incapable of human emotion. 

“You always reply to my texts and I always start with ‘hi’,” she had pointed out.

“Yes but it’s you texting and if I ignore it it could cost me something useful like a body part.”

“Oh thanks, glad to know that’s what makes me special,” she teased, smirking at him.

“Molly, don’t start, we’re in public.”

“Don’t start what?”

“Doing the thing you’re doing with those big happy eyes and looking distractingly fetching.”

“Fetching? I look  _ distractingly _ fetching today?”

“I...it’s an objective statement, Molly, nothing more,” he murmured, glancing away from her and at the crowd, feeling acutely embarrassed he’d even said anything.

“There’s absolutely nothing objective about that statement, Sherlock,” she laughed, going to grab another glass of wine, amusement still sparkling in her features. She didn’t say anything more about when they went to sit for the meal, or later on the ride back to her flat where they’d shared an eventful shower, a late spot of curry, and him falling asleep on her sofa after he sent her bed.

 

***

John was too tired those days with Rosie and work to see what was happening. And Mrs. Hudson? Well, if she knew something she wasn’t saying. It wasn’t until one day for coffee with Mary, when Molly was wearing one of Sherlock’s shirts by accident, that the cat was out of the bag. Because apparently the day before when Mary had met Sherlock for a case at the crack of dawn, he had definitely accidentally been wearing Molly’d scarf. She had pretty easily realized they’re sleeping together, and not just napping. And for some reason Molly didn’t have the heart to deny it anymore, and finally (and rather reluctantly) confided in Mary and demanded she keep it secret and not tell Sherlock she knew, keep it even from John. 

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Mary had sighed, a bit sadly, “We seem to be pretty good at hiding things from each other these days.” 

Molly had wanted to ask what was going on, but Mary brushed it off. She hoped everything was fine between Mary and John, it was tough being new parents and they’d certainly been through a lot in their still new marriage. She didn’t know the particulars of Sherlock’s latest case with the Thatcher busts, but something about it was making Mary almost flighty, and it was definitely unlike her.

Molly wish she had said more that day, especially when a short time later Mary ran off and fled England in some sort of wild goose chase to protect her family. Molly helped take care of Rosie while John and Sherlock went after her, but Molly was worried about her friend. Sherlock has been texting her updates when he could, and at least she was grateful for that.

Something was going to happen, Molly could feel it, the dread icing in her veins. She’d been so relieved when they’d found Mary, when had come home, when it seemed like the crime would be solved and that everything would be normal again.

Until it wasn’t.

 

***

 

Sherlock wasn’t prone to mauldin thoughts, but he had believed and hope in a good life for John, Mary, and Rosie. He had made a vow. But some stories don’t have happy endings, and some promises couldn’t be kept. But he hadn’t seen the signs, he’d felt on top of the world and ignorant to the danger looming at their door.

And then the aquarium happened. And then, he didn’t stop talking and deducing. And then, no more Mary Watson. It had all gone terribly wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be her, the bullet had been meant for him. Yet again, he had escaped death. For the first time, he wished he hadn’t. Especially as he watched the life drain away from Mary, heard her take her last breath. Watched John Watson shatter before him and then look up at him with absolute hatred in his eyes. Watched as everything fell to pieces.

He was dimly aware of shuffling back, of Lestrade pulling him away and then Donovan and Anderson arriving and looking at him with such pity it made him want to vomit. He wasn’t sure he hadn’t. 

But something in him had managed enough reason to make the plea.

“Don’t take the body to Bart’s. Please don’t do that to her.”

Lestrade didn’t even have to guess to know Sherlock wasn’t referring to Mary. He nodded, clapping a hand gently on Sherlock’s shoulder as if it might help. As if it could change anything. 

 

With his statement taken and Lestrade clearing him to leave, Mycroft swept Sherlock into his car in silence. Mycroft always had something to say, always a quip ready, but in this moment he knew the smartest thing was to be silent. There was nothing he could do, no comfort he could bring to his little brother. He wasn’t what Sherlock needed at the moment, but he knew what, or rather, who was. He could only pray Molly Hooper was enough to keep a danger night at bay. If anyone could, it was her. 

 

***

She had already known before the Holmes brothers arrived at her doorstep. Greg had called, unsure of who had been babysitting Rosie that night, and from the first sentence she could tell it was bad news. Funny how the world could shatter with just a single phone call. She couldn’t even remember how she ended the call, just that in the next moment she was sitting quietly on her couch staring at nothing, sitting as still as possible. If she didn’t move, if she kept still, perhaps the moment could freeze forever hung in a limbo where Mary wasn’t really dead yet. 

But then the knocking came and she somehow knew who’d be on the other side of the door. And there he was in his great coat, in shock and despair. She ushered him inside while Mycroft hovered at the door.

“If there’s anything you need...well, take care of each other.”

Molly nodded, shutting the door as Mycroft walked away. Anyone who didn’t know Mycroft Holmes would think his tone was uncaring. Dismissive. But Molly knew; Mycroft was at a total loss and bringing Sherlock to her was the only thing he knew to do. 

She somehow managed to wrestle his coat off his shaking frame and hang it up. Managed to sit him down as she sat next to him, feeling her throat thick with so many words and feelings that she could choke on them. She couldn’t ever recall seeing Sherlock Holmes look so utterly defeated and numb. Even when he had to fake his own death he hadn’t looked this bad.

“Sherlock,” she began, her voice croaking. God, she wanted to be strong for him, strong for them both, but the moment she said his name she felt it all crash down on them.

Mary was gone, their friend was gone and not like when she’d run off on a global goose chase. She wasn’t hiding in some back alley of Tangiers or a Nordic fjord. She was gone forever. 

“It’s my fault. I got her killed, I should have never...I shouldn’t have…” he began, a broken staccato of words watered down by his tears. Molly hadn’t thought her heart could break any more, but leave it to Sherlock Holmes to find a way, but this time she wasn’t mad at him. Both their hearts were broken and she, always the stronger one, would try and hold it together for them, if only for the night. 

She wrapped her arms around him, cradling him and gently soothing at his arms with her hands.

“You didn’t shoot her. You weren’t holding the gun. She wanted to protect you. Mary was good like that, wasn’t she? She was brave.”

“I should have shut my mouth, she tried to warn me to stop and I didn’t listen, why don’t I ever listen?”

Molly could feel her own tears burning down her cheek. She took a steadying breath and shifted back so he could look at her. She reached up and placed her palms on his sharp cheekbones, forcing his watery gaze to meet hers.

“Mary loved you, Sherlock. I lo…we know it wasn’t your fault.”

Even now, she couldn’t say it. Couldn’t admit it. But it wasn’t the time and it wasn’t what he needed to hear.

“Molly...Molly….” he murmured, hugging her close again as he trembled. She held him as they sat in silence for minutes that stretched on like hours, until she feel wariness weighing him down to his bones.

“We need to sleep now. Come on,” she said gently, tugging him up as she led him to her bedroom and helped him take off his shoes before they crawled under the comforter. It was the first time they’d slept together in her bed in a long time to just sleep, and she felt horribly guilty at how much she liked having him next to her despite the fact he was there under horrible circumstances. But she was glad she wasn’t alone, glad he wasn’t either. 

In the end, before Greg or John, they’d always had each other for better and often for worse, and he had long since been comfortable letting his guard down around her when they were alone. He needed that tonight, and she needed him, just him. She turned off the light and curled around him, holding him close until he finally drifted off to sleep, her following him shortly after. They’d face more of the fallout tomorrow. 

When she woke up, when tomorrow had come too soon with all the dreaded promise of more emotional wreckage, Sherlock was already awake but still in bed, staring off in space. She had half expected him to leave before she woke, but he remained next to her. The tears were gone in his eyes for the moment but his expression was as stormy and solemn as ever.

“Sherlock,” she mumbled, to let him know she was awake. Perhaps he’d want to talk more, or not talk at all. She herself could go with the not talking, her feelings still too raw and jagged.

He didn’t reply, merely turned to look at her for a brief moment before he quickly moved to fall on top of her and fit himself over her, burying his face in her neck. His hands were at her waist pushing down her pajama bottoms and pants quickly, his breath loud and harsh against the column of her throat. 

So then, no talking it was. 

She felt him unzip his trousers and tug them down enough to free himself and then he was inside her. He proceeded to fuck her, frantically, and she made no move to stop it. It wasn’t like the previous times, it wasn’t for fun or relieving stress or whatever excuses they had made. 

There was nothing really pleasurable about it, at least for her, but that didn’t stop her from encouraging him on. She suspected he had initiated for the same reason she was participating. He didn’t know what to do with it all; the sadness, the guilt, the loss, so he was using her and she let him because for a brief moment it put her mind elsewhere and chased off the impending emotional breakdown she could feel on the fringes of her mind. A few minutes later he shuddered above her, groaning one last wordless exhale against her neck. He didn’t say a word as he left the bed and went to the bathroom to shower, leaving her there. She understood. It didn’t make it entirely okay, but she understood nonetheless. She slid out of bed, adjusting her pajama bottoms back on and wrapping herself up in her dressing gown. She desperately needed some coffee, if anything to fortify her from what was likely to be a deeply awful conversation between her and Sherlock.

Ten minutes later, he exited the bathroom and walked into her kitchen, quietly accepting the cup of coffee she’d also made him. He wouldn’t sit, and neither did she as they stood across from each other at her kitchen island.

Before she could say anything, the words that she didn’t want to say but knew she had to for both their sakes, he interrupted. 

“Molly, I...you are wonderful. You’ve been wonderful, as has our time together these past weeks, but now, I don’t think…”

How exactly did she have any heart left in her at this point? Still enough to feel the ache in her chest at his words, and even though she was about to say the same, it didn’t make it hurt any less. 

“But you can’t do this again, can you?” she said, her words a sad echo of a previous conversation the year before when he’d said the same thing to her. 

He looked at her, giving the same pained smile he did a year ago in a different room and a different time in their lives. 

“Molly...”

“It’s fine, Sherlock. I was going to say the same thing, you beat me to it. Now, with everything, it’s not a good idea. I’m a mess, we both are, and will be for quite a bit. We’re moving well into complicated. We have been.” 

“I know,” he said, his voice so sad. So lost. It wasn’t just the loss of their brief physical dalliance causing it, but it gave her some small sense of validation that he would miss that part too. A thing they never should have started, a thing impossible not to start. But it had to end, she just didn’t expect it so soon. She would miss it, miss him in that way. Not just the sex, the closeness. How it easily almost felt like something more, something they’d been coming so close to but still skirting around. But they couldn’t keep going on like that, not with Mary’s death and everything else happening.

Mary, dead. She still couldn’t fathom it and tried to squeeze her eyes shut before tears leaked out.

“She was just over the other day, you know? Apologizing for running off like that all over the place. Worried that Jo..,” she paused, seeing a flash of despair grow deeper in Sherlock’s expression. It took her a moment, she was never as quick as him with deductions, but she knew Sherlock so well by this point. 

No. No John wouldn’t. He couldn’t….oh God.

“He blames you. That’s why you...Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”

No wonder. It wasn’t just one of their friends he lost. It was both his best friends. She couldn’t even imagine how deeply he was hurting.

No wonder that morning he had...no, best not think of it now.

“I have to go. Thank you, Molly Hooper.”

He moved towards the door, putting his coat back on but before he could leave, before God knows when she’d see him again, she called out his name.

“I’m still here for you, if you need anything. You can still have me.”

He looked at her from across the room, his gaze searing into hers. Then he shook his head.

“Not anymore.” 

And with that he left.

 


	2. Turn Your Back, On Your Soulless Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being banned from a funeral has never stopped Sherlock Holmes, but trying not to feel is another matter entirely.

 

Mary Watson was dead. John, widowed. Rosie, motherless. Sherlock, bereft. And Molly Hooper? 

Stressed. Beyond so, not that anyone had noticed. When one wasn’t the star player in their little shared universe, these things often went unnoticed. But Mike was starting to cotton on, asking if she needed time off. Molly, of course, refused. She needed the work, needed the routine, needed to not think of the unbearable tragedy that seemed to corrupt everything she’d held dear. 

So Molly Hooper began her shifts at Bart’s on time, willed herself to think only of the paperwork and of the post mortems, and when she took the Tube home she willed herself to think of her errands, of the things she needed at the shops, of the things John needed from the shops, and of the paper she’d been writing with Sherlock that had gone untouched for days and anything and everything to  _ not _ think of Mary Watson’s death.

These tactics worked for only a short time at best and soon enough, when she was finally in the solace of her flat and away from being a shoulder to cry on or a godmother tending to a fussy baby and everything else everyone relied on her for, Molly Hooper collapsed on her couch and curled up into restless fits of sleep. She was too tired to even cry and the one person who always seemed to need her for something was the one person who’d been keeping radio silence.

And she worried about him and that silence. A Sherlock Holmes trapped alone in his grief was a dangerous thing, she knew it all to well. 

But most nights she was too tired to text, too tired to unpack it all. 

Maybe it was because she was running on fumes and stress and emotion that the row she’d had with John happened, four days after Mary’s death and two before the funeral. Over Sherlock, of course, the ‘drama queen’ as John put it while Molly tried to hold her tongue. She had just put Rosie down for a nap when John was helplessly figuring out arrangements and the question had just slipped from her mouth.

“What about Sherlock?”

“Not invited,” John had said in cold, clipped tons.

“John, I know you’re angry but he was Mary’s friend. She wouldn’t want…”

“Mary’s dead now because of him so I hardly think she’s hear to make that case!”

“You and I both know she’d want him there. Just let him come, pay his respects and he’ll leave. Please!”

“Let me make this clear, Sherlock Holmes isn’t going anywhere near me, my family, or that funeral. He’s done enough!”

John, stubborn John so sad and bitter, had walked away from the argument with the last word and would speak no more about it. And Molly felt fucking awful for making him upset but she also felt upset on Sherlock’s behalf, and Mary’s. And that made her also feel terribly guilty. John had just lost his wife and here she was coming to Sherlock’s defense at the worst possible time. One more thing to the list, one more reason the dark circles under Molly’s eyes grew more noticeable, and why she hadn’t smiled in a week. 

She had originally planned to drive out to the Cotswolds for the funeral with John, but with things now frosty between them she found herself piling solo into a hired car, dressed in, of all things, the A-line black Topshop dress Mary had helped her pick out that she never had a chance to wear on a date or night out. It had been with a cheeky wink Mary had suggested Molly could wear it to dinner with a certain detective who’d probably love peeling it off her. A date that never happened, never would happen, and  _ God damnit _ the entirely selfish part of Molly wished more than anything in that moment that Mary’s funeral was not the first time she wore it.

But reality could one hell of a cruel bitch, especially to Molly Hooper. 

And so she quietly and politely accepted a hug from Greg and Mrs. Hudson, sitting next to them in the small church near the Bourton-on-the-Water high street. She listened to the sermon, to the holy words, listened to Rosie’s chortling cries because she was hungry and it was Harry, not Molly, who tended to the baby and Molly tried to not feel the sting. Harry was family, Molly was just...Molly.

Mrs. Hudson was silently tearing up, Greg looking solemn, and Molly felt sure she could keep it together, was going to keep it together. She could do it. As Mrs. Hudson tried to choke back a sob, a hand holding a handkerchief appeared between her head and Molly’s. Molly took the scrap of cloth and handed it to Mrs. Hudson, then turned to quietly thank the person sitting behind them who at a brief first glance didn’t look out of the ordinary.

But under the blonde, straight haired wig and large plastic framed glasses, Molly knew those eyes.

Of course he’d find a way to be there. How had she assumed otherwise? Before she could say anything, he motioned his head for her to turn around. So she did, saying nothing, gripping her black clutch a bit tighter in lieu of the things she couldn’t say. Of wanting to tell him what a ridiculous disguise it was, of how Mary would have just absolutely loved how silly he looked just so he could attend her funeral. And it was that thought that finally put the fatal crack in the dam Molly had built around her feelings all week as a bubble of laughter floated to her lips only to turn into a deep, shaking sob. She flung a hand to her mouth, trying to desperately maintain control but it was of little use as the sobs racked her tiny frame and even when Greg put an arm around her, trying to help, it was of little comfort.

The man whose arm she wanted around her was a seat behind her and yet completely out of reach. 

And because she was facing away from him, Molly could not see the tear slipping down Sherlock’s cheek, or the heartbreak in his eyes.

 

****

 

He’d held it together well, all things considered. Mrs. Hudson doting on him, the police backing off after their questions were satisfied and so what if he’d been spending most of the days that had followed in dressing gowns and his own miserable thoughts? Not like anyone but Hudders cared. John didn’t care. Mary was too dead to care. 

And Molly? Too busy for him, too caught in the middle, too out of reach because he’d made her so. She’d always been his rock, and now he was adrift without an anchor. John needed her, Rosie needed her, so Sherlock did his honest best to not need her. Silly notion, as if he could turn it on and off like a switch. But he’d kept his distance, even when his fingers itched to text her number, when his ears wanted her voice to fill the awful silence in Baker Street. But he wouldn’t, so he let her go as if she was ever his when she never really was. 

And he’d been doing fine, had figured out a way to be at the funeral and pay his last respects because Mary would have wanted him to see it through. The wig and glasses were ridiculous, but grieving husbands rarely paid attention to everyone at funerals. He hadn’t intended to sit behind Mrs. Hudson, George, and Molly, but when he saw the back of her head he was drawn in. And when Mrs. Hudson began to sniffle, it seemed like the right thing to do in offered a handkerchief. He should have known Molly would recognize him, and oh what a sight she was. She looked pale, her face drawn and wary and tired. Worse than the height of her stress in the previous weeks, worse than he’d ever seen her. He tried to ignore the observations quickly forming in his mind, tried to focus on the sermon.

He hadn’t shed one tear yet over Mary Watson’s death, feeling it would solve for nothing. But the moment the sob burst forth from Molly’s lips, when she trembled with the weight of grief breaking loose that she couldn’t control and Lestrade slipped an arm around her (an arm that should have been his), he felt something in his chest just break apart and the moisture forming in his tear ducts.

He could hear Mary now,  _ “See, Sherlock Holmes can feel something! Go on, have a cry and let it out.” _

He’d never expected a friend like Mary, friends at all. Brilliant, goofy, teasing Mary who had been such a natural fit into their lives and now she was gone, it was all gone, and he never thought he’d miss her being called a pig, missed her needling questions about his lack of love life, or even her complaints about breastfeeding. He had never expected Mary to come into his life, and never expected her to leave it so soon, no thanks to him.

And because of his fuck up, she was gone and he was in the stupid wig and couldn’t even put his arms around Molly Hooper, who  _ rarely _ ever broke down and lost control and he had never felt more alone. 

How had he ever thought alone was his best option? Had he always been so stupid?

But soon the funeral was over, and he remained inconspicuous as everyone filed out of the church and to the hall down the street where he watched from corners as people clapped their hands on John’s shoulders, kept saying how sorry they were, and it was some miracle that Harry had decided to be sober enough to care for her niece. 

Lestrade had taken Mrs. Hudson home, the day being too much for her. With them gone, it was clear Molly was left alone to wander through an ocean of mourning. John was barely speaking to her, had they had some sort of fight? From their expressions, it seemed like yes. John would barely look at her, and when Molly’s gaze drifted towards John her eyes were hesitant and upset.

There wasn’t a wide variety of things they would fight about, and Sherlock felt his stomach drop at the good guess at what may have caused their tiff. Was there anything he wasn’t damaging?

Alone, miserable and guilty, it seemed as if he’d worn out a welcome he didn’t even have and so he slipped out of the hall and into the rain. What a day to forget an umbrella.

He’d made it a good way down the road, his bad wig sopping wet and his clothes soaked when a car pulled up next to him and the door opened.

“Sherlock, get in!”

Molly Hooper. She must have noticed he left because  _ of course she would _ . 

He almost wanted to tell her to leave, but it was cold and he was getting soaked to the bone and dying of pneumonia in the country was not on his agenda. So he got into the car, slipping the stupid wig off and tossing it into the back seat. At least his hair was dry, but his curls were a limp mess. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask where they were going until she pulled off to the side of an empty B road on the outskirts of town. It seemed she had something to say, going by the contemplating expression on her face as she turned to face him.

“You look really nice in glasses,” she said, and it was not what he expected to hear.

“You look...nice as well,” he replied, wondering where this was going. 

“No, I really don’t.” she murmured, looking out ahead at the quiet, lit up town in the distance across the dark expanse of fields.  Her eyeliner was smudged, her nose and skin blotchy. In truth, she did look terrible but she was also the best thing he’d seen in days.

“Sherlock, will you have sex with me? I know we agreed that was over but I really need to feel something other than this right now. It’s either you fuck me or I let you put lit cigarettes out on my arm.”

That was absolutely not what he expected her to say, to ask, and it was a terrible idea and yet he wanted. Oh, he wanted. 

“I don’t ha…”

“We both know that’s a lie.”

“No, I smoked them all on my way out here,” he confessed, embarrassed that yet again she’d caught him out. 

“Right, sex it is then.” She moved herself over to the passenger seat and onto his lap, shuffling to wiggle her knickers off and he should have stopped her, should her gently pushed her back to the driver seat. Instead he put his hands on her hips. 

“Good thing I wore a dress today,” she mumbled, more to herself than anything while he made no reply. 

She moved her hands to his buckle, and he didn’t stop her. As much as she needed this, so did he. The connection, the distraction.  _ Her _ . They both needed something else than this gaping, clawing grief threatening to hollow them out entirely. 

One day, someday, all the misery and grief and these terrible things they kept, they’d finally throw it away. But that day was nowhere in sight, so all he could do is try to forget for a little while as Molly rode him with an intensity that seemed to even startle her. She was behaving exactly as he did that morning, after Mary died, trying to outrun everything threatening to swallow them whole. Trying not to think.

So he didn’t think of anything as she came, hard, moaning loudly in his ear and tugging his hair so tight it almost hurt. Didn’t think of anything else as he was gasping a groan and his hands tightened on her hips as he rutted into her harder and swept her into another orgasm as he fell apart with his own.

He shivered against her, hands still on her hips and mouth still by her ear.

“Hooper,” he rasped out, her name like a prayer on his lips.

She was quiet, her small face pressed against his neck. She clung to him a moment longer as if her life depended on it, but then all too soon she shuffled back to the driver’s seat and without a word drove him back to London, dropping him off at Baker Street. 

Before he could close the car door, she called his name.

“Sherlock, I...thank you,” she said, looking away from him.

“Good night, Molly Hooper,” he replied, closing the car door and feeling more adrift than ever.

He watched her drive away. She should go, far away from him. He didn’t want her to leave.

The next time he sees her it’s at John’s, when he had intentions of trying to make amends, trying to bridge the gap between himself and his best friend. Try to be of some use. But it’s Molly who greets him, to his surprise, holding Rosie. Molly, looking so tired, so worn, so sad with her hair in a bun and in her dark aqua jumper. It seemed her and John had made up, and for a moment Sherlock felt some hope.

Until Molly handed him the note in her pocket, her face so full of pity, and yet again his world was crushed by just a few words, John’s words on Molly’s lips.

“Anyone but you..”

Well, there wasn’t much to say to that was there? Somehow, he’d his way back to Baker Street, where a DVD waited for him with the ominous words of “Miss me?” on them. His heart leapt for a moment, the prospect of the ghost of Moriarty stirring him to action. But what he and Mrs. Hudson last expected was Mary Watson’s face onscreen, and new case for Sherlock Holmes.  


	3. Once You Were Tethered, and Now You Are Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary has left Sherlock quite the case, the case to save John Watson and he's going to go to hell if need be and well, he needs Molly to ride him there in an ambulance.

Sherlock was on drugs again; he was going to hell per Mary’s request and destroying himself in the process while Wiggins and Mrs. Hudson stand by, wringing their hands and not knowing how and if they could even stop him or should. It was part of the plan, he insisted. He had to do it for Mary, for John.

The cases that come through his door feel empty and meaningless, nothing brings the spark it used to. And then that woman shows up, Faith, as he spun further and further out of control but there she is with her fragile demeanor and sad eyes and ready to end her life and well, they couldn’t have that. It was like he told her at the waterfront, perhaps speaking more to himself than her, taking your own life, taking it from whom? Once it’s over it’s not you who will miss it, it’s the others. Maybe John in the end. Definitely Mrs. Hudson. Even Lestrade. The Woman, wherever she was.

And Molly. 

_ Your life is not your own, keep your hands off it. _ He doesn’t even know at that point who he was talking to anymore because Faith was gone when he turned around, had she ever even been there? Perhaps it was the drugs but no, she had been real, right? He would take the case, pick a fight with Culverton Smith. He needed a fight against someone he couldn’t win against, didn’t he? It was the case Mary had left for him and he should have turned on his heels and head for Marylebone. Instead he wandered across Southwark until he saw the dark green framework of the market and realized he had walked  himself to Molly’s flat without thinking. Well then, if his plan was going to work he needed her. That was the only reason he was buzzing at her flat door and had nothing to do with her absence weighing on him heavily.

She let him up of course, and when she took in the disheveled sight of him  he can see her eyes widen. She was worried about the state he was in, and it did not help he passed by her with nary a word and proceeded to pass out on her couch, only dimly aware of Toby jumping onto and curling up on his legs.

Hours later, he awoke to a tea cup slamming down on the table next to his head and Molly moving his legs over so she could sit next to him. 

“You’re using again.”

It wasn’t not a question and he chose not to insult her by even thinking it’s one. 

“Yes. Just enough to get the job done. Be convincing.”

She turned her large eyes on him, and she looked so tired and beyond what normally would have been anger at his backsliding. She just looked sad and worn.

“For a case, then? Like it always is?”

“For Mary.”

He watched her snort and turn her gaze around as she pursed her lips. He could get up and go, not ask his favor, let her be. Molly Hooper did not deserve to be used up and wrung out like a sponge but he did not get up. Instead she sighed and without looking at spoke again.

“Tell what this is about, then.”

He launched into the story of the DVD, of Mary’s mission, watching as Molly closed her eyes and nodded because she believed him. Of course Mary would pull something like this from beyond the grave, she was clever like that. Had been.

“So you need me, then. That’s why you’re here?”

To her credit, she almost hid the hurt in her voice but he caught it and it was just another thing to add onto the pile of self-loathing he was coasting by on. 

“Two weeks from now, I need you to show up with an ambulance at an address, I’ll text you in a few days. You’re going to examine me, and you’ll need to be convincing, make John believe it’s serious.”

“It  _ is _ serious, Sherlock! Look at you!”

“I try not to these days.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You faked my death and kept it secret for two years, this is child’s play.”

She glared at him for a moment and then rubbed her eyes with a hand.

“Fine, what’s the plan.”

He explained, knowing full well she hated every moment of it but should would help anyway. But he got the distinct feeling it wasn’t going to continue that way much longer. Molly Hooper deserved better than this, but he always selfishly needed her in a way few people knew or understood. 

Maybe that was why two weeks later, when John sneered about needing the person who would see through his bullshit, the last person Sherlock would think of, he had to fight to keep the surge of anger in him from rising. He was trying to save John, not distance him further. Luckily, the doorbell intervened.

“You’re really not going to like this,” Sherlock said, knowing exactly who was on the other side. The last person John Watson expected him to think of, the first person Sherlock always thought of. Molly, standing at the door making a great show of being confused as to why she was there until he strolled to the door to greet her, inquiring if she had brought his coat (he had left it at her flat, after all) and for some reason it struck him to say it, something so unlike him.

“Just tell me when to cough,” he drawled, and had given a brief eyebrow waggle. It had taken her off guard, and John even more so. It was as if the idea of Sherlock saying anything genuinely flirtatious towards Molly was utterly inconceivable.

_ ‘Oh, now you see John? You never saw her before, you still don’t see it all,’ _ Sherlock thought, bitterly as he hopped into the ambulance with Molly climbing in behind him. It was all part of the plan, but he hadn’t expected her to take his blood pressure and actually check his vitals. He had rather hoped she wouldn’t because he could not take the look on her face afterwards.

“This isn’t just for show, is it?” she said quietly, sitting next to him on the gurney.

He shook his head.

“I had to be genuinely convincing. He’s a doctor too. It’s the only way.”

She laughed, bitterly, her eyes shimmering as she stared into his.

“You would died for the people you care about, you faked your own death and left for two years. So why can’t you want to live for u..them. When does it stop, Sherlock?” she asked, her voice breathless and weary.

“I don’t know,” he confessed, hanging his head.  _ Your life is not your own _ , his words echoed back to him. 

“I can’t do it anymore, watch you with one foot in the grave and the other half-living.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I always ask too much from you, always need you to save me. I always make it so hard for you,” he murmured, taking her hand. He rarely was the first to initiate physical contact between them, but this time it was necessary. She in turn grasped his hand back, pressing her forehead against his clammy one.

“And I’d do it again and again because I know you, I know why you do all this, but this is going too far and it’s breaking my heart. You promised me all your birthdays,” she said, her voice breaking at the end. She wanted to cry, he could tell, but he wondered if she even had tears left at that point.

Before he can reply, they had arrived and had to slip back into their parts. The doors opened and sat at the edge of the ambulance, drawn and sad and angrily stating his health status in front of John while he slid back into glib, careless humor.

“Molly, I’m worried about you. You look stressed.”

“I’m stressed, you’re dying!”

“Stress can ruin every day of your life, dying can only ruin one.”

But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? It would be more than one day. Days. Months. Years. Not for the ones he left behind, the ones that mattered. Not for her.

Before they could say more, Culverton Smith appeared and led them away as Molly stayed behind and he should have kept walking straight on, kept on target, but he didn’t. For a brief moment he glanced over his shoulder, past John, past everyone else, towards Molly and for a moment the act, the entire mask of the Great Detective slipped away, and he looked at her as if to say he was sorry, to say ‘please don’t fall apart over me anymore.’ To say all the things they’d never said, might never still. 

 

                                     ***

  
  


She could feel it on her lips when he turned to look at her, her mouth starting to form, “wait!” But she remained silent with only a brief look between them that spoke volumes. There were thousands of sorries in that look, so much worry in that look. He saw it of course, how much this was killing her too. She saw  _ him _ , and he knew it. The Sherlock looking back at her wasn’t the detective, it was man; stripped of his cold logic rhetoric. He cared so much about his friends, would risk everything for them. Would he risk it all for her, she wondered? But then what danger would she ever be in aside from a broken heart.

No one thought of her too much in relation to Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps he’d effectively kept it that way. So much of their time was always in private, like a decades long secret he refused to share with the world.

She could only hope he’d make it another day. To another birthday. She needed something to hold onto and hope for, that there’d be time still for things she needed to say to him, time they both kept wasting as if they had infinite tomorrows.

It was days later when he texted, letting her know he was still the hospital recovering, what had happened, and that he was detoxing. She had visited while John was at work, and had gasped taking in the state of him. He looked  _ awful _ , and not just from the drugs. He’d been beaten up, and a quick glance of his chart made her wince.

“At least your ribs aren’t broken,” she said, as if it was a consolation.

“Molly…”

“What happened? Did Smith’s men do this?”

He looked at her for a long moment, then shook his head.

“Then who? This was someone with a serious bone to pick.”

He looked away from her then, and it was enough for her to piece it together. She smothered the rage rising in her for the moment as she stood next to his hospital bed and reached into her bag, producing a stack of crosswords.

“Are those for me?”

“Figured you’d need something to keep you busy for an hour.”

“An hour? Please,” he huffed indignantly.

She smiled, but it was pained.

“You aren’t exactly at 100%, Sherlock. I was estimating. Also, you need a shave.”

“Is that an offer?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. It was almost too easy to fall back into this but they just...couldn’t.

“No flirting, Sherlock, please.”

“Sorry.”

“Yes well, you can make it up to me. Cake, you know when. I’ll text you the address.”

He looked at her confused for a moment.

“You still owe me a few more, Sherlock. You promised.”

She saw the “ah” moment for him, and he nodded.

“Are you going so soon?”

“I have to get back to work, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, all things considered.”

“And you? Are you okay?”

She blinked at him, and gave another not-entirely-genuine smile.

“I’m always okay.”

They both knew it was a lie, but left it. She waved goodbye and headed across town but not to Bart’s. To a different clinic altogether. John was startled when she barged into his office, even more so she slammed the door behind him and she watched his eyes widen when he took in her furious expression.

“Molly, hi...er...what did Sherlock do now?” 

“What did Sherlock do? How about what you did?”

She could see the guilt flash across his face before he opened his mouth to make excuses.

“Save it, John! I get it, you’re grieving. I’m sorry Mary’s gone and we all miss her. I’m sorry for what this has been doing to you and your family and your friendship but that isn’t an excuse. It’s never an excuse. That man was willing to put himself at death’s door just to pull you back, to honor Mary’s wishes and to save you. Do you have any idea how rare that is? I understand you were angry, you blamed him, but know this John Watson, if you ever lay another hand on Sherlock I will never forgive you. You went too far, he nearly died. Would have that have made it better? Made Mary happy?”

John shook his head, eyes watering.

“No.”

“If Sherlock died, Mary’s sacrifice would have been nothing and what about everyone else left behind if he died? Sherlock was never just yours but sometimes I wonder if you even see that or if you still only see what he wants you to see. This broke both of you, all of us. We all lost something, how much more should we lose?”

“Molly I...I’m sorry…”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to,” she said, eyes severe.

“Right then,” John said, shuffling in his spot, “right.”

“Next week, we’re having cake. You should come.”

“Cake?”

“You have a week to make it right on your end. I hope you do.” 

She left his office, not explaining more because he had to understand what she meant after all these years, right? She had one more stop to make as it were, before actually going to work.

Mary’s grave was simple but carved with roses. The name might have been not entirely true, nor the birth date, but it didn’t matter. This was who Mary was in the end, wife, mother, friend.

Molly hoped it had been worth it, playing the part one more time to honor her friend’s wish and save John. But she just couldn’t do it anymore. It was taking such a toll these days, and it was costing too much. It was costing Sherlock as well, not that he’d admit it much. He blocked that part of himself too well still, even when it left scars every time. When would it be enough? 

 

***

 

It had truly flummoxed him, Mary’s sacrifice and her putting his life above his own. It wasn’t that he had wanted die, something he’d realized late into the game as Smith threatened to snuff him out. He’d felt...unworthy of  living while Mary died, that she had valued him so highly. He tried to explain this to John, who had shown up to Baker Street, that it was something he struggled to understand but knew he it meant something. He knew he had to keep living. He meant it what he had said to that woman, the Not-Faith spectre that night, it was not his life to take and Molly was right, he’d go to his death but what would he live for? He already knew how it hurt people the first time he’d left. He had to find the value Mary put on his life. He still didn’t know how but it was up to him to figure it out. 

And then John started talking about his love life, of all things, after Irene’s “Happy Birthday” text that he never wanted or asked for. How Sherlock’s idea he didn’t need anyone was bullshit, how it would complete him as a human being. How luck he was that he had someone out there alive who liked him, how lucky he was. He knew John meant Irene, and he didn’t feel it was worth correcting as it was clear John had something to say.

He never expected it to be a confession that John had emotionally cheated on Mary via text. He didn’t know what to say to that, except that even he texted sometimes. He knew he shouldn’t, and he didn’t specify which ‘her’ he meant. John didn’t need to know Irene was rather over her interest in him, married to a barrister and living in Melbourne, but that her texts were playing more than anything else. But sometimes he wanted to reply, for outside perspective and advice but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

_ But she’s out there and she likes you, and do you have any idea of how lucky you are? Complete him as a human. _ Molly already did that.

_ Being a better man, the man she wants you to be. Get a piece of that. _

_ If I wasn’t the man you thought I was, that I thought I was... _

But in that moment it really wasn’t about him, it was about what John needed to sort out in himself and it was something bigger than just a pained “it is what it is.” Sherlock Holmes was not a hugger, he rarely initiated physical contact with but a handful of people, but nonetheless he hugged his best friend because sometimes even he was human, and so was John. Maybe they both needed reminding of that right now, with their friendship patching back together.

They met Molly for cake, and Sherlock never questioned how John knew about those plans, assuming Molly had mentioned it. If John found it strange Sherlock had originally planned to spend his birthday with only Molly, he did not say. It wasn’t entirely John’s business anyway. Wasn’t anyone’s really, and Molly had always understood that. Nothing was said of the fact they shared a slice of s’mores cake while John opted for carrot. They kept to small talk: how Rosie was doing, Sherlock’s next cases, and anything else that was a lighter topic. Before they left, Molly insisted on a birthday selfie and he obliged, grumpily. To get the picture right they had to press their faces closer together and he could  have almost sighed with pleasure at her perfume, Clinique Happy like always. Her hair against his cheek was cool and he wanted to press his face into it more. 

“One...two...three...deerstalker!” 

Both she and John had grinned, while Sherlock’s face looked mildly annoyed. He had agreed to the photo, he never promised to smile.

“Can’t even smile for your own birthday, mate?” John asked, laughing.

“Maybe had  _ someone _ said cheese and not that stupid hat,” he replied, turning to give Molly a raised eyebrow.

“It’s what popped into my head! Besides, it’s quite a Sherlockian picture and I’d rather you not be faking it.”

“I don’t fa…”

Both Molly and John snorted at that, and Sherlock clamped his mouth shut before both provided receipts that proved the exact opposite. This was...nice. It almost all felt normal again. Almost. He looked up and outside the shop door, where for a moment a blonde woman stood smiling at him, giving him a thumbs up before disappearing into nothing. 

“Sorry to dash, but I have to pick up Rosie. You’ll look after him, then?” John asked, looking to Molly.

“Don’t I always?”

“I’m sitting right here, you two.”

John shook his head and left, leaving Sherlock and Molly to finish their cake before they headed back to Baker Street. Sherlock still needed to detox, and it was her shift to help since John had to tend to Rosie and Mrs. Hudson needed some rest. She still had pajamas she’d kept there and never taken back.

They watched crap telly, played Operation (where she had the advantage), debated journals and it was almost like nothing bad had happened and they were as they always were when things were going good. He got the chills late in the evening, and she helped him into bed and sat next to him knowing her warmth would help and that even though he’d rarely admit it, he hated being alone for this part when his body felt like it was betraying him and he just wanted comfort. She read  _ Murder on the Rue Morgue _ out loud from her book app, and he could feel himself drifting off. Somewhere in the middle he stirred, feeling her still next to him. It had been weeks since they last shared a bed, months really, but it was as if they never stopped. He put an arm around her and scooted closer. It almost felt like everything would be okay.

When he woke up, she was gone. No note, no text, but he hadn’t expected either. It was Wednesday, she had the morning shift at work and if he had to guess she needed space after waking up next to him, something they’d hadn’t done since...well, he didn’t want to think of that. Whatever was going on between him and Molly would end up having to wait, in the end.

 

A  few days later, he was in his sitting room with John and Mycroft and the knowledge he had a sister he couldn’t remember, and then everything exploded. Literally.

  
  
  
  
  



	4. That Was the River, This is the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock comes face to face with his long-lost sister, as well as the emotions he's desperately (and poorly) tried to bury. Will he save Molly Hooper or destroy them both?

It’s a funny thing, Sherlock reflected, to realize everything you thought you knew as familiar as your own reflection was but a half truth. He had always thought the way he was had been his own doing, his own shaping. And now with a few words Mycroft had ripped that veil from his eyes.

A sister. Eurus. 

The man he was today was his memory of Eurus; cold logic, too brilliant, not understanding emotion or, at least, pretended not to. Every choice and path was his memory of her. He had been both how he remembers her but also fighting the idea of her by solving crime. Was nothing ever simple for a Holmes? Apparently not. Mycroft had monitored his memories, because memories and wounds have demons. He used trigger words to update himself on Sherlock’s mental state. 

Mycroft likely saw it as a misguided attempt at care, of protecting Sherlock, and maybe someday he would accept that but not today. He’d only had so much time process it before the drone had appeared and Eurus continued her quest to actively blow up everything Sherlock’s life, quite literally this time. Just like that, 221B Baker Street exploded. Another piece of the life he had know, the things that made Sherlock Sherlock Holmes blown away. He and John had been lucky, it was always a calculated risk jumping out of the window but Speedy’s awning had halted their fall so they only would have at best a few scrapes and bruises. 

Sherlock brushed debris from his hair as he heard John grumbling about ruining another shirt. They stood on shaky feet, looking up to the gaping and jagged burnt out hole that had been the sitting room windows. He suppressed the queasy churn of his stomach, the tightness in his chest that wanted him to scream and cry out for the destruction of his home, of so many things he had kept and collected there. His books, his lab equipment, his chair, Billy the Skull, and the physical reminder of who he was in the form of a single flat. Later, he would mourn that intangible death later. The Game was afoot, the most dangerous one.

“Mrs. Hudson?” John asked, face furrowed in concern.

“I’d be amazed if she had heard it through Iron Maiden, but I’m sure she felt it. She should be fine and Mycroft will check on her, though likely vice versa.”

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to be fussed over.”

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to do the fussing,” Sherlock said with the ghost of a smirk on his lips.

John chuckled but then his expression turned serious.

“Are you okay?”

“Better than the flat, I’d say.”

“Sherlock, that’s not what I…”

“I know. Later. Time is of the essence.”

“So what next?”

“Next you go home, make sure Rosie is safe. I’ll text you the next steps.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“Not right now. I think we both need to clean up and change and it’s safer to split up right now.”

John nodded, then took one more baleful look up at 221B.

“Going to take more than Dettol to clean that up.”

“Worry not, Watson, after all this is over the British Government will be footing the bill.”

“So, Mycroft.”

“Of course Mycroft.”

“Sherlock, where are you going to go? Are your boltholes secure at this point?”

“Most of them no, but I know just the one.”

 

***

 

Of course no one would think to call Molly, and she found out about the bombing of Baker Street through a BBC news alert when she was just taking a sip of lukewarm tea. She nearly choked it down as she took in the burnt damage the camera showed from the outside and felt her stomach drop.

_ Sherlock!  _

But the news said there were no signs of fatality, and she could see a rattled Mrs. Hudson in the background being tended to by an EMT. She was the only tennant present. Police investigating. But where was Sherlock?

She dug her phone of her pocket and typed at lightning speed. 

 

**Sherlock, are you okay???? Where are you??- Mx**

 

She felt her chest tighten, and it was the worst 56 seconds of her life waiting for a reply that finally came.

 

**I’m currently feeding your corpulent feline. - SH**

 

She felt everything in her loosen, and once she took a breath her worry melted into agitation. His reply was so...so bloody casual as if it was just an ordinary day! Would this man ever understand that just because he was nonchalant the people that cared for him definitely weren’t? 

**That’s seriously all you have to say? I saw the news, saw Baker St. ARE YOU OKAY?- M**

 

**A few scrapes. Nothing serious. Better than my flat. But I do have bad news.- SH**

 

**Omg, John?? Did something happen to him? - M**

 

**No, John is fine. But I’m afraid my purple shirt has gone up in flames and one of my Belstaffs. I’m sorry, Molly, I know how much that shirt meant to you.- SH**

 

Molly looked at her screen, closed her eyes and sighed, and looked at his again.

**Please continue feeding Toby, because in about twenty minutes I am going to murder you.- M**

 

**Get in line. - SH**

 

Molly shoved her phone in her pocket and stood up, tossing the tea and firing a text off to Mike. She was taking the rest of the day off, felt a cold coming on. It wasn’t exactly a lie, she had felt a bit awful that morning and congested, but instead of rest and cuddles she had an idiot detective to throttle. The nerve of his flippancy! Sometimes, a very small and vexed part of her wished she had never walked into that lab that day in Scotland, had never had chemistry with Sherlock Holmes. But in her heart she knew she’d never totally feel that way.

He was arrogant, rude, too bloody clever and stupid at the same time, insensitive, full of absolute shit most of the time. But she would miss him terribly even if she had never met him. And that was that. 

Her mind was oddly full of white noise on the Tube ride to Borough Station, unable to grasp onto or form a single cohesive thought. There were too many rushing around her mind and perhaps she was running on autopilot; the muscle memory of attended to Sherlock after a major incident. She was a pro by now really, second member of the club after his brother. It was their life, wasn’t it? The occasional good, often bad, sometimes very ugly. Solving crime together, cake for his birthday, quiet and blessedly normal hours chatting in private in the lab. But then things like Moriarty, Magnussen, the Fall, the danger, the shifts in the face he presented in public in private. The drugs. The risks he took. The lengths he went to. Almost dying so many times. Caring about Sherlock was an endurance test and it made Molly feel strong most of the time but today she felt worn. 

When did it end? 

Her keys jangled in her hand as she took the steps up towards her flat and opened the door, calling out his name. And there he sat, sprawled on her sofa with Toby curled up next to him and Sherlock on his bloody mobile. 

“Ah, Molly, twenty-three minutes. Not bad time.” 

It was so jarringly domestic, as if he was her partner waiting for her after a long day. Ready for her to curl up next to him and tuck her feet in his lap while they talked about their days. Order takeaway. Watch crap telly. Well, they did most of that already but lacking the full context her thoughts drifted to taking the scene in before her. And yet, something always kept a line between that. Mostly him. Mostly her. 

“Explain.”

“The extra three minutes? Well, I’d assume something to do with a delay on Northern line…”

“Don’t. I’m not asking the detective,” she ground out. She was tired suddenly, the worry and frustration from earlier leaving her weary. He knew exactly what she was saying, she could tell by the subtle change in his expression. She didn’t want the mask, she wanted the man to speak. She’d just never been as direct about it, about the many of the things they skirted around. But she was too tired for that dance. 

“It seems I have a sister.”

“That you neglected to mention?”

“That through a traumatic experience my brain chose to forget and Mycroft used this to rewrite some of my memories.”

Molly blinked, processing the information. It was something out of a story, far-fetched, and yet…

“Seems about right for your family.”

“Isn’t it?” he replied, face rueful as she tentatively sat next to him on the sofa careful to not disturb the cat.

“And Baker Street?”

“Her handy work. Eurus. A bomb on a drone. She’s been watching me apparently, she posing as John’s therapist the day you came to get me in the ambulance. God knows who else she’s been disguising herself as. According to Mycroft she’s an era-defining genius but has no concept of empathy or emotions. She can’t tell laughter from screaming, or which emotion is pain.”

Molly sucked in a breath. “She’s like you and Mycroft on steroids.”

“Worse. It appears she is why I am…”

“How you are, or how you desperate want to seem?”

He shot her a look.

“I am what I am, Molly.”

She rolled her eyes.

“After all this time, really? I’ve been here, Sherlock, all this time. Mycroft is your brother, yes, John is your best friend, but can you say there’s anyone else who knows you better than I do? And I do mean knows  _ you _ , all of it, not just what you want to show the world. I’m just finally saying what we both have always known. The Detective is what you show the world, but that’s not  _ who _ you actually are. Just a face.”

He groaned, leaning his head back on her sofa.

“Are we really doing this right now?”

She shrugged, surprised by how completely transparent she was being, but she was tired and just so very done with this farce that had gone on for too long.

“You’re the one who keeps almost dying. Better now than never. Did you honestly think you weren’t in for a scolding coming here?”

“Well I had hoped for some tea and sympathy.”

“I have the tea, but sympathy is a bit shot these days. You clearly survived, I see you did get into my first aid kit. Not sure why you’re still here. Don’t you have plans to formulate? Danger to put yourself and John in? You’ve gotten your use out of me today, haven’t you? Change of clothes, shower, treatment. What else could you need me for?”

“I understand you’re angry…”

Angry? That didn’t even begin to cover it and if he had actually bothered to look, really look, he’d deduce what was there in the circles under her eyes, the hollow of her cheeks, the red around her nose, the dullness. 

“No, I’m exhausted. I’ve been working double shifts because I’d rather be working distracted from the fact that I’m this close to an emotional breakdown, my free time is spent helping with Rosie and I have to hear on the fucking news about Baker Street instead of a call. A text. Because why would I need to hear from you first? I’m just Molly Hooper, here to facilitate your experiments, give you use to my home and bed, bring you parts, patch you up and be your errand girl.”

He shifted towards her so quickly, his mercurial eyes suddenly so serious but so shy it almost took her breath away.

“That’s not what you are to me and you know it.”

She swallowed thickly, wanting to laugh or cry. She didn’t know which.

“Then what am I to you? You say I count, that I’ve always counted. That I’m the person who mattered most, right? So what is it, Holmes?”

She knew better than to expect he’d actually answer, knew he’d clam up in silence like he currently was. But a small part of her dared to hope, and that hope hurt. When he said nothing for a moment longer, she stood up.

“That’s what I thought. Please leave.”

“Molly,” he said, looking up at her with imploring eyes. That soft expression like the one in the hallway, where he’d made some decision for the both of them and tried closing a door she hadn’t entirely known had opened.

“No, I can’t do this right now. You need to go. Do whatever it is you need to do.”

He stood, and Toby gave a faint mewl at the loss of his favorite male human. She was sure he expected a different conversation entirely; maybe her fawning over him, patching him up, saying she’d always help him, do whatever but she wasn’t entirely that Molly Hooper anymore, they both knew it. And somewhere along the way, maybe made sharper by Mary’s death, Molly couldn’t settle for the pretense anymore. One day they were going to have an honest conversation about things. But not today.

She watched him cross to the door, taking the Belstaff he kept at her flat and as he opened the door. She almost said something, “don’t die”, “be careful.” She didn’t say anything in the end. 

And then he was gone, and Molly was left alone with her stormy feelings as she sank back down onto the sofa and ran her fingers through Toby’s fur. Part of her felt guilty; he had clearly been through an ordeal, his world turned upside down, but him acting like he always would towards it hadn’t helped. Something had to give, and he also needed to figure this out for himself. She had enabled both his faces for too long and it was about time Sherlock Holmes learned to reconcile who and what he was. 

She just hoped he would survive it.

 

***

There she was before him, pale except for her long, unkempt brown hair and large blue eyes that saw everything yet seemed to feel nothing except for a flash of mild curiosity. He thought himself a machine at times, but here was the real thing before him. It was unsettling. This was the physical manifestation of who he tried to convince the world he was, who he tried to believe he was. Insanely brilliant, coldly logical, unsentimental. It wasn’t until he stood before Eurus, that he realized how silly it was to ever believe he was such things when the real deal was behind the glass. And she had asked to play, to play himself. 

He chose to play a distraction, something wouldn’t be able to read truth from. Something to protect him. He played Irene’s theme. He had composed it, it was somewhat him from a time when a mess of troubling feeling had clouded him mixed with hesitant respect. 

“Oh, you’ve had sex.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong, but the partner in question was not the one who had inspired the piece. She was sexual yes, but even this Irene was a cover. A distraction to the truth. As the conversation unraveled he was alarmed to learn his sister had tried her feral hand at intercouse, and the more she talked the more unsettling Sherlock found her. Was this how he had let people see him? No. No he was never this bad, never this out of touch, never this unfeeling or ignorantly cruel.

‘ _ Are you so sure? _ ’ a part of his mind whispered. He thought of Molly’s exhausted face the last time he saw her in her sitting room the day before. John’s face at the graveyard. All the people who had looked at him like he was surely looking at Eurus now. How had he ever aspired to be like  _ this _ ? 

“You see through everything but don’t see when there’s nothing to see through.”

And then her cold fingers were twinning with his and suddenly he saw stars as she grabbed him and headbutted him and soon the world went black.

When he awoke, John and Mycroft were there for the beginning of a series of tests, Eurus’ way of applying emotional context. Was it to torture him? It seemed more like an experiment to her, puzzling him out. It was if she was trying to see how he reacted, testing the hypothesis that he was led by emotion and not logic, that it was his emotions that made him better at deduction. It was the antithesis of the foundation he’d built up for himself, but with each task it was becoming uneasily clear she might have been right. The mad genius who could spot terrorist threats after only an hour on Twitter and who had very likely been the true genius behind the lynch pins of Moriarty’s plots towards Sherlock.

It made him sick inside, but today they were soldiers. Save the girl on the plane. Defeat Eurus. That was the mission. Keep calm and carry on. 

And he had done his best, until they walked into the next room with the coffin. 

“Whose coffin? You may begin your deductions,” Eurus had said, as if she was talking lightly about a maths problem. 

Sherlock rattled out the size, John threw in his input, and it wasn’t until Mycroft drawled out the obvious, to just look at the name on the coffin, that everything began to turn on his head. Sherlock approached, seeing his reflection in the gold plating a moment before he read the words, and he could the way his own expression just fell. 

Mycroft had to have known once he saw the lid who the coffin was for. Always a step ahead of Sherlock, and somehow of course Mycroft would have known. Sherlock had never wanted Mycroft to be more before. But they both knew very well who it was intended more. He almost laughed pitifully when John suggested Irene Adler as the person who loved Sherlock. Not a long list indeed. But long enough.

“ Unmarried, practical about death, alone,” he had rattled off, desperate to keep detachment in his voice and failing. He could tell by the edge of strain in the timbre of his voice.

“Molly!” John had supplied, finally understanding.

“Molly Hooper.”

John was starting to to realize it, a bit. At least the Molly loving him part. The obvious part. Sherlock felt something in him unravel as a wave of nausea coursed through him. He had thought she had been kept safe, resigned to the background sight unseen and kept private. He had thought wrong and it paralyzed him at how so very wrong he had always been.

He had thought Eurus’ previous tasks were cruel, but nothing was more vicious than this: make Molly Hooper say “I love you” to Sherlock Holmes to save her life. To keep her flat from blowing up. One outcome would destroy them mercilessly, the other destroy them by her death. Either way, Molly would not come out of this unscathed and it made him everything in him furious, fighting to cling to control. He had to do this. He had to save Molly, who was always saving him. They needed more time, so much left unsaid. So many days not lived. Because he was such a fool and had taken it all for granted and he had made her walls up, made her as stubborn.  _ Oh, Hooper. _

The phone rang, and it the worst moments of his life as he watched her ignore the phone, giving it a side eye as she continued making her tea. She looked miserable.

“Why isn’t she answer her phone?”

“You never answer your,” John supplied, unhelpfully.

“Yes, but it’s  _ me _ calling.”

He knew she had been upset at him, and they’d ended their last conversation in a stalemate, but still….

It goes to voicemail.

‘ _ Hi this is Molly at the dead centre of town. Leave a message.’ _

He had hated that voicemail message, but he’d never be happier to keep hearing for the rest of his life after this.

“Okay, okay. Just one more time.”

Eurus dials again.

“Come on, Molly, pick up. Just bloody pick up,” John mumbled behind him.

He watches her on the screen, in her vibrant colorful jumper, her drawn face, he can tell she’s been sick or crying. Finally, she picks up.

“Hello Sherlock is this urgent? ‘Cause I’m not having a good day.”

_ ‘Bad day, was it?’ _

That day at Bart’s seemed a lifetime ago. He wished he hadn’t been so aloof with her. Had taken her up on her offer to get coffee. 

“Molly, I just want you to do something very easy for me and not ask why.” 

He watched her sigh in frustration. “Oh God, is this one of your stupid games?”

“No, it’s not a game,” he said, remembering their conversation weeks earlier, her yelling the very same at him when he was on death’s door. How awful a parallel this felt. “I...need you to help me.”

“Look, I’m not at the lab,” she said curtly, and it pained him at how she was still under the impression that was all she was good for. The impression he had never done the best job of correcting, only in ambiguous bits and pieces. Only in a few rounds of shagging both hadn’t bothered to talk about or apply actual meaning to.

“It’s not about that.”

“Well, quickly then.”

He blinked rapidly, biting his lip. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this to her. It wasn’t fair, but her life was on the line. It seemed like either way he chose, he could not win. But better her life than her death.

“Sherlock, what is it? What do you want?”

The room went read and he could hear the staccato of Moriarty voice as his image appeared onscreen chanting “tick-tock, tick-tock”. A moment later the lights were white and Molly’s flat was again shown.

“Molly please, without asking why, just say these words.”

“What words?” she asked and he could see her lips quirk up in a curious smile, clearly wondering what he was up to and likely bemused with his cryptic behavior. He held onto that smile, seared it into his memory.

“I love you.”

Her expression dropped quickly, face tensing as she sniffled. She dropped her mobile and stared at it, ready to terminate the call.

“Leave me alone!”

“Molly no! Please no, don’t hang up. Do not hang up!” He was panicking now, reaching out as if she could see him begging, but she couldn’t. From her view, she had no context while Eurus was torturing them both with a different sort.

“Calmly, Sherlock, or I will finish her right now,” Eurus chimed in, her voice a mechanical echo.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?” Molly demanded, and Sherlock could hear the anger in her voice, how close to tears she was. It was destroying him.

“Please, I swear! You have to just listen to me.”

“Softer, Sherlock,” Eurus ordered quietly.

“Molly, this is for a case. It’s, it’s a sort of experiment,” he said trying to sound light, doing a poor job of masking the desperation in his voice. He could practically feel John and Mycroft tense in the background.

“I’m not an experiment, Sherlock,” Molly replied harshly.

His panic increased.

“No, I know you’re not an experiment. You’re my friend. We’re friends,” he supplied quickly, even that ringing so hollow to his own ears. Just friends? It was never that simple, and that’s why they were in this very situation. He nearly choked over his next words, what he was asking her to do. “But please. Just say those words for me.”

“Please don’t do this. Just don’t...don’t do it,” her voice said softly, laced with pain. He could see how upset she was and it was making something inside him splinter piece by piece, but he had to press on. It was to save her life.

“It’s very important. I can’t say why, but I promise you it is,” he said, his voice tense. He was fighting to keep calm, but was wearing so very thin. He had to save her. He would save her.

“I can’t say that. I can’t...say that to you,” she said, and he knew she was about to cry. The quiver in her voice lanced through him. 

“Of course you can. Why can’t you?” he asked flippantly with a mirthless laugh, pretending. Maybe if he kept up the farce, acted ignorant then Eurus would think she made a mistake. He couldn’t let her see, let them see it.

“You know why.”

“No, I don’t know why.”

He saw her sigh with exasperation, and he realized with pained irony this was the exact conversation they’d long been heading towards. What she had been hinted at last they spoke. What was always there that they never talked about. It should not be happening then, it wasn’t fair. This thing between them had always been private, now dragged out for an audience she didn’t know existed. It was humiliating. The thing splintering inside him fractured more as she spoke.

“Of course you do.”

“Please, just say it.”

“I can’t. Not to you.”

“Why?”

As if he didn’t know. As if he didn’t know this was absolutely killing her. He saw the exact moment she began crying. He wanted to cry but couldn’t. Soldiers. Had to press on, do more damage for the greater good. Isn’t it how it always went? 

“Because...it’s tr-true, Sherlock.”   

He nodded, eyes wide and a small hint of a smile flitted by on his mouth. There it was. The thing they both always knew for years.

“It’s always been true,” she sobbed. And it was killing them both in that moment. His expression fell, still and calm. 

“Well if it’s true, just say it anyway.”

“You bastard.”

He was a bastard, but he had to keep digging the knife it. To save her.

“Say it anyway.”

“You say it. Go on. You say it first.”

His face furrowed, and he almost wanted to glance back to John as if to say, ‘is she serious?’ He shook his head slightly confused and incredulous.

“What?”

“Say it. Say it like you mean it.” 

Her voice was stronger this time, commanding. This was the Molly that had teased him about him being a graduate chemist. The fierce Molly who hadn’t taken his shit in college. The Molly who had slapped him and demanded he apologize. His Hooper.

“Final thirty seconds,” Eurus reminded, her voice an intrusion into the forced intimacy of the moment, a moment that should never had happened like this. The clock counted down and Sherlock could hear Mycroft gasp behind him. He had never expected his brother to be so worried for Molly Hooper. And yet it didn’t surprise him.

Sherlock could do this. He’d lied countless of times, said anything and did anything to get what he needed. He’d faked whole relationships. He could do this.

“I-I..” he began, words stilted. Why was this so bloody hard? It was just words! “I love you.” 

He could hear Molly exhale softly, saw how she cradled her phone to her face with two hands, saw the hopeful smile flicker across her face. In his mind he saw every smile, every moment her eyes had shined up at him, every time he had smiled at her. In an instance, he realized why the words had been so hard to conjure up when such lies were so easy in the past.

Because it wasn’t a lie, not with her.

”I love you,” he repeated softly. The realization of what he always known deep inside coming to the fore. Of course he loved her. And of course he had spectacularly mucked it up.

“Molly?”

He watched her stare at her mobile. Felt his heart clench.

“Molly please,” he repeated, not caring how desperate he sounded. 

She inhaled shakily, and then the words came softly floating on breath.

“I love you.”

The countdown beeped to a close and Sherlock looked up, breathing a sigh of relief.He cradled his head in his hands, one still holding the gun, trying to regroup. 

“Sherlock, however hard that was…” Mycroft began, but Sherlock didn’t want to hear it. Later, he’d deal with the fallout later.

“Eurus, I won. I won. Come on, play fair. The girl on the plane, I need to talk to her. I won, I saved Molly Hooper.”

Why wasn’t she replying? He had won, she’d said the words. She was still alive! He heard Eurus a moment later, her tone chiding. As she spoke, he felt his control unravel with each word.

“Saved her? From what? Oh do be sensible, there were never explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn’t win. You lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself. All those complicated little emotions, I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock, it destroys you every time.”

He moved to the coffin, feeling something boil within him as he set the gun down and walked towards the coffin lid, something inside him clawing fiercely to the surface as she spoke.

“Now, please pull yourself together. I need you at peak efficiency. The next one isn’t going to be so easy.”

He could hear the metal door open behind him.

“In your own time.”

He walked to stand before the coffin lid and grabbed it, his eyes roaming over the gold plate once more as he brought it back to the coffin and laid it back on neatly. His fingers trailed along the lid, along the nameplate. He released a quiet gasp, throat shaky and rough.

“Sherlock?” John asked as he and Mycroft stood poised to exit through the door. They didn’t understand, at least John still didn’t understand. Why didn’t anyone else understand?

Sherlock inhaled sharply and unbuttoned his coat out of instinct, the thing inside him breaking free. Anger. Despair. A whole flood of emotions crackling free and fixated on one thing. The coffin.

“No...NO.”

He punched his hand through, felt the skin of his knuckles tear from the cheap wood as he smashed the coffin with his bare hands, his mind flicking through every moment he had ruined Molly Hooper, made her cry, made her yell, made her upset, had taken her for granted. In school. When he was using. When he’d use his flirtations to get what he wanted. As he ruined all her romantic relationships. The Christmas party. The lab before his fall. The way he’d been so nasty about her ended engagement. How he had not bothered to just talk to her honestly after all the times they’d been together, knowing she stubbornly refused to because he hadn’t ever made it easy to feel like it’d be okay. 

He’d made a career out of breaking Molly Hooper’s heart and now it had finally destroyed her, and him. As the coffin smashed to bits and he groaned and yelled, the coffin finally gave way until he screamed, the words almost inaudible, but he knew what it was he screamed: “I love you.”

After, he collapsed against the wall, resting his hands on bent knees completely drained. Broken. 

John walked over to him them, ever the doctor ready to triage.

“Look, I know this is difficult and I know this is torture, but you’ve got to keep it together.”

“This isn’t torture, this is vivisection. We’re experiencing science from the perspective of lab rats.”

Eurus had cut right to the heart of him without pause, had honed in on the very thing no one else had seemed to figure out was his greatest weakness but had always been there. And now? It’d be a miracle if Molly ever talked to him again. She was alive, her life never in danger even when he thought he’d saved her. But at what cost. Too high of a cost.

“Soldiers?”

Later, he had to deal with this later. They had to keep going. There was more at stake, even if it felt trivial in the moment. He had a game to finish.

“Soldiers.”

And with that, Sherlock stood up and carried on.

 

***

 

Molly laid curled up on her sofa under her blanket, jumper removed and still wearing the t-shirt underneath, her trousers still on and soft blanket draped over her as she sipped her second gin & tonic. It had been hours since the call, night had already fallen and she should go to sleep but she couldn’t. She couldn’t believe what had happened, what Sherlock had asked of her. What she had asked of Sherlock. Why? Why had he done it? Especially after their previous conversation. Even he wasn’t that cruel, right? 

It was picking at her, eating her inside. What experiment could that have possibly been for, a study in her own humiliation? But she had gotten to say it first, and while the first time felt awkward and as if he was trying to say it to appease her, the second time…

She had known Sherlock Holmes for almost twenty years. She knew his bullshit. That second ‘I love you’ had not been a false flattery, wasn’t sweet words to get his way. She could hear it in his voice, the same tone has when a piece of the puzzle finally dropped for him. He had  _ meant _ it. And somehow that made it much worse because she had no idea why they were having the conversation to begin with. And why was he on a case if he supposed to be going after his sister?

His sister. The genius. The genius with no emotional direction. Could it be? She had no idea. Half of her never wanted to speak to Sherlock again, to close the door for good and move on. Maybe move somewhere like America or France. The other wanted desperately to find him, demand answers, and then settle things once and for all.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and she padded to open it, surprised to see Sally Donovan on the other side.

“Oh thank Christ, you’re home.”

“Sally, what’s going on?”

“It’s Holmes, something with his sister.”

Molly’s eyes widened.

“Is he...is he…?”

“Oh no! No, he’s alive. Sorry, Molly, didn’t mean to spook to. He’s out in the country where his family used to live with John. They got her, his sister. Apparently she’s a right state. Physically he’s fine, but Greg said it was a rough one.”

“Did he ask you to tell me?”

Sally shook her head.

“We figured since they’ll be there for a while you’d might want to go see him. He could probably use it right about now from what I hear.”

Molly nodded, putting her coat on and following Sally downstairs.

“Wait, we?”

They got to the car where Philip Anderson stood next to the passenger side door, holding a hot cup of coffee and handing it to Molly.

“Evening, Molly.”

“Anderson, what…?”

“Anderson here said we should pick you up and take you out there. He had a hunch it was the right thing to do.”

Molly looked at Philip, saw him smiling. She knew he’d had some theory about her involvement with Sherlock and it was uncanny as to how nearly close to the truth he had been. He was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for. As she got into the backseat and they headed up, she thought it was so odd these two of all people would have fetched her to bring her to Sherlock, the person Sally used to call “Freak.”

And then it hit her, this was Sally making up for it. 

“Thank you,” Molly said softly, sipping at her coffee. “And thanks for the cuppa.”

“No problem. Though we may want to stop and get one for John. Heard he was trapped in a well for a while.”

“I’m sorry what?!” Molly asked suddenly.

“The sister trapped John in a well, where they found a kid’s skeleton. Heard the place was real creepy. The sister had burned it down when she was a kid.”

“Jesus,” Molly replied.

“ Guess I can’t blame him for not being particularly normal considering his family,” Sally supplied, “Wonder what the parents are like.”

“They’re actually very sweet, normal even. Mrs. Holmes is a genius in her own right, but she’s your average mum.”

“With three above average children. Poor woman. And the dad?”

“Normal as they go. I like him. Is Sherlock really okay?”

“Knowing Holmes, he’s putting on a show that he is, but I reckon only you and John would really know.”

“So I’m reinforcements then?”

“No, Molly, we’re pretty sure you’re exactly who Sherlock Holmes needs to see right now and vice versa,” Anderson said.

The car ride was fairly quiet after that.

***

 

Sherlock and John watched the officers of NSY march around tagging evidence and sweeping the scene, with Greg in the middle of the chaos. It was flurry of activity and they’d long since carted Eurus away to somewhere secure, while John and Sherlock stood on the sidelines.

“How are you holding up?” John asked, tucking a shock blanket around him for warmth. 

“Right now? Better than you physically. Emotionally….to be determined.”

“I’m sorry you know, about Victor.”

Sherlock sighed, feeling like he would cry again if he had any tears left.

“I should have saved him.”

“You were a boy, Sherlock, there was nothing you could have done. It was Eurus’ fault.”

“I know. Stll…”

“You should go back to Ella.”

“So should you. At least we both know she isn’t a Holmes in disguise.”

They looked at each other, then chuckled. God, their lives were ludicrous and in a way, Eurus had succeeded in her experiment. The very thing Moriarty had flat out said years ago.

Sherlock Holmes did, in fact, possess a heart and felt things, deeply. No matter how much he tried, he could never switch it off in favor of cold logic. And he no longer wanted to. 

“So, Molly Hooper?” John asked. It wasn’t really a question, it was an ask for confirmation.

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

Sherlock cast his memory back, through every interaction spanning across almost two decades  this time with the right emotional context. When had it began? When had Molly Hooper planted herself into his heart?

Oh, he knew.

“A while. Just hadn’t quite figured it out.”

John made a strangled half laugh, half choking noise.

“Jesus mate, all this time and you’ve managed to cock it up that long?”

“I’m a genius, I never said I was smart.”

“Well, what are you going to say to her?”

Sherlock sighed. What was there to say? ‘I’m sorry’ a thousand times over? 

“Honestly? No idea. Who knows if she’ll even want to talk to me right now.”

“Er well, you better figure it out soon. She’s right over there.”

Sherlock snapped his head towards the direction John indicated, and saw Molly standing next to Donovan’s car in her large coat, hair down and staring at him with wide eyes as she walked towards him slowly. 

He ran to her and suddenly it came to him; the one word that always felt right, always said everything, and carried everything he felt.

“Hooper,” he breathed, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms tightly around her as he buried his face into her hair. He didn’t care who saw, who was watching anymore. 

“Holmes,” she replied, her voice breaking as he felt her fingers dig into the fabric at his waist. 

For the first time in their entire history Sherlock Holmes kissed Molly Hooper first, desperately and passionately. 

After a moment she tilted her head back to catch her breath, and looked at him, her eyes bright in the police lights.

“I thought posh boy detectives don’t kiss like that.”

“Oh yes they fucking do,” he growled out, pulling her in again and moving his lips over hers. 

Every kiss he ever allowed, never pushing her way, she should have known: it was his waying of saying ‘I love you’ all this time. 

“Molly, I meant it,” he whispered against her lips, resting his forehead against hers.

“I know,” she says with a breathy laugh and took his hands, looking at the cuts. “Your hands?”

“We’ll talk about that, later. I’m just glad you’re here. You’ll stay?”

She looked up at him softly and ran her ungloved hands through his curls.

“Always.”

He gave his statements to Greg while Molly bandaged his hands and finally, after what felt like forever, they were cleared to leave. John had gone to go get Rosie, go home, and had told Sherlock he could stay with him but Sherlock already had somewhere he can go. Home, with Molly. 

He was too wired to sleep, like he should be doing, but Molly couldn’t sleep either so they found themselves walking along Victoria embankment. Should they go get chips? But it was too late for that. Coffee maybe?

Then, he has a crazy, impulsive idea. 

“Been to Scotland lately?” he asked, still holding her hand as they stood looking down the Thames towards Tower Bridge.

“No?” she answered, but it was a question. She was intrigued.

“Want to go?” 

“Now? Are you serious?”

Her face was wrinkled in adorable confusion and bemusement, but she hadn’t exactly said no either.

“Completely. Baker Street’s in shambles, this business with my sister will take at least a week to sort out on the police and government’s end, and I just had my world smashed apart...right now London’s a bit overrated.”

She blinked at him, doing her own adorable version of Molly Buffering. And then, she smiled.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, they’ll need to sweep my flat too, and we could both really use a holiday after the day we had. I never did have time much to get out to the Highlands. Would you wear a kilt for me?”

She was babbling, and he could tell some of it was the tension of everything breaking that caused her to be suddenly giddy. But he knew she meant it, she would go with him. Probably to the ends of the Earth if he asked. And after everything that happened, she managed to joke about wanting him in a kilt? Christ, he loved this woman so.

“Hmm maybe, but not the kind of holiday I had in mind.”

“Oh?”

He brushed his lips to her ears.

“Was thinking more a sex holiday.”

He felt her cheeks warm and she pulled her head back to look at him.

“Sex holiday? I thought that’s what John said you called his honeymo..oh. Oh my.”

“Still interested?”

“This is  _ really _ , of every way possible, how you’re asking me?”

Sherlock shrugged.

“Molly, we’re at the river with the city lit up in a view that is, objectively speaking, a sight to see I would think, strolling along the path with a man who’s loved you for years...what else is there? Is that a ‘no’ then?”

She stopped walking and grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Of course it’s a yes, you daft man.”

He smiled at her.

“Good.”

 

***

 

“Sorry, you’re what?” John said, blinking like an owl.

“Married, do catch up,” Sherlock admonished as he sat in an armchair in Molly’s sitting room, reading the paper.

John was still stunned as Molly put a cup of tea in his hands and gave a biscuit to Rosie.

“It’s just, I mean, I knew she had feelings for you and you just realized yours for her…”

“ _ She _ is right here, John,” Molly said, picking up Rosie and sitting on the sofa with her.

“Sorry, Molls, you know what I mean. But you only just confessed your feelings recently, Sherlock. It’s just a bit sudden and you never struck me as the eloping type. Or the marrying type.”

“And as always I continue to defy expectations,” Sherlock drawled, flipping the page and looking totally relaxed in his dressing gown. He was relaxed, for the first time in a long time. 

“Ooh, John, should update the website with that as a slogan,” Molly teased.

“Oh my God, are you tag team taking the piss out of me?”

“Yep!” Sherlock said, popping the ‘p’.

“You could have called me, I could have been your best man.”

“We didn’t want to interrupt your time with Rosie, and it was really a sudden decision. Besides, we’re thinking of having a proper ceremony for friends and family,” Molly said, trying to sooth John’s ruffled feathers.

“Hmmm more like you are, dear,” Sherlock mumbled from behind the paper.

“Oh, and is that why you’ve been learning how to fold new napkin shapes and Googling venues?” Molly replied, teasingly. 

John’s expression changed then to amused spectator, and it was almost the exact face he’d made when they met Tom for the first time.

“Okay, this exchange makes up for the secrecy. But then I guess you two have always been a bit private about what was going on between you.”

Sherlock looked over his paper at John, then at Molly. She didn’t look upset at this observation, thankfully.

“Don’t be too annoyed, I was kept in the dark most of the time too,” Molly said with a smile, and shot Sherlock a look that was practically daring him to contradict. He, smart man, did not.

“It wasn’t about secrecy, but timing was of the essence. My sister did make one good point, about days not lived. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you up to drag you and the wee Watson up north, but after everything that happened with Eurus and fearing she was going to blow up the woman I’ve loved for so long and that I’d lost her for good, waiting another day was never going to happen.”

This time both John and Molly looked at him, blinking.

“What?” Sherlock asked, feeling suddenly self conscious.

“So long?” Molly asked, quietly.

“Yes, of course. I just didn’t recognize it at first.”

“It  _ was _ the dress at Christmas, wasn’t it? No wonder you were jealous,” John joked.

“Don’t be stupid, John, it wasn’t Christmas. It was Halloween.” 

He held his gaze to Molly, her eyes beautiful and wide as she was starting to realize but not quite.

“You mean when you two left the party together? Oh my god, Mary  _ was  _ right! She always suspected something happened between you two that night.”

“Oh it did, three times actually.”

“Sherlock!” Molly screeched, her face red.

“It was Halloween, for sure. 1999.”

“Come again?” John asked, but Sherlock kept his eyes on his wife and saw the wonderful moment when it hit her.

“Oh my God, really?” she asked, doing a great job mimicking Greg from the aforementioned Christmas party. 

“Yes, really. You did kiss me after all.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yes, she kissed me to shut her friend Meena up, wearing quite an adorable nurse dress, do keep up, John.”

“I wasn’t even there!”

“John, this has been a lovely visit but probably best you and Rosie leave.” Molly said abruptly, handing Rosie back to John.

“Are we having a domestic? Did I say something wrong?” Sherlock asked, dropping the paper in mild panic.

“No, you said something very right,” Molly said, arching an eyebrow. And then it hit Sherlock.

“Right, time to go John, I’ll text you if I get news of a case, do enjoy the rest of the day.” Sherlock said, quickly, shuffling the Watsons to the door.

“What? Sherlock, Molly why are you...oh...oh God, nope, nevermind. Really need to teach me the deletion thing.”

“Bye, John!” Molly chirped happily as Sherlock slammed the door shut, and spun on his heels, walking towards her.

“Admit, it was the nurse costume, wasn’t it?” she asked, coyly.

“Well, it was rather snug,” he replied, shrugging out of his dressing gown and draping it on the edge of the sofa.

“I thought you were above all that?”

“So did I, but you always seem to be an exception,” he smiled, pulling them down so she sat in his lap on the sofa. Their faces were barely an inch apart, lips hovering apart.

“Holmes,” she breathed out, and he could feel her mouth move over the word.

“Holmes,” he murmured back, pressing his lips to hers, finally. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, the end of the "Sight Unseen" series!! It's been such a journey and I knew from the very start exactly how this was going to go, especially their last words to each other.
> 
> Thank you everyone who had read this story and gone on this journey with me. :)


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